


Murder By Mistake

by recoveringrabbit



Series: A Love Story With Detective Interruptions [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: 1930s Murder Mystery AU, F/M, and a good many OCs, because it wouldn't be any fun if the likely suspects were obvious, other cameos - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-18
Updated: 2015-09-14
Packaged: 2018-03-31 04:12:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 33
Words: 121,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3963931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recoveringrabbit/pseuds/recoveringrabbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Certain they know what to expect, neither Jemma nor Fitz is particularly excited when their presence is demanded at a house party. It promises to be a deadly dull weekend away from their projects, stuffed with awkward snubs and long tedious attempts at conversation. Of course, they never expected each other. And then there's the small matter of the guest found dead in bed Saturday morning, leaving Fitz as the prime suspect...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Party Begins

There are days, common in late May but by no means limited to it, which are inherently pregnant with possibility. Some combination of weather, season, and light makes one wake up in the morning feeling invincible, or braver than usual, or perhaps just slightly more lucky; feeling like that, what can’t a person accomplish? Great discoveries do come on cloudy days or during long nights, but there’s a reason Isaac Newton is said to have understood gravity while sitting under an apple tree.

Jemma Simmons, dashing around the quad holding her cap on with one hand, was having one of those days.

Granted, she was nearly late for a lecture. But when one had just made a major breakthrough in the experiment one had been working on since before one came up to Oxford, even Jemma found that lectures tended to lose significance in the grand scheme of things. And when, as in this case, the experiment had the potential to save thousands of lives – well, in that case it became decidedly less important to ensure the front seat at the Exams Building. Hugging the precious notes to her chest as she passed through the gate, Jemma could hardly keep the gleeful grin off her face. She couldn’t _wait_ until her tutor saw this.

“Miss Simmons!”

Turning sharply with a billow of her long academic gown, she saw the porter leaning dangerously out of his box. “I’m in a frightful rush, Padgett.”

He ducked his head deferentially. “Yes miss, only there’s a telegram come for you.”

She glanced at her watch, stamped her foot, and raced back. A telegram could mean anything; it didn’t do to ignore them. Tearing open the waxed envelope impatiently, her trepidation turned to an exasperated huff at the message.

DARLING. MUST INSIST YOU COME DOWN FOR WEEKEND. LAST MINUTE EMERGENCY REQUIRES ALL RESERVES. COUSIN MARY WILL RIDE WITH YOU. MOTHER.

Jemma sighed, wondering why her mother bothered to sign these things. No one but Edith Simmons could be so assuming and demanding in so few words. “So much for my lecture. Padgett, I need to make a trunk call.”

As she waited for the Exchange to connect, Jemma reflected idly on the ironic fact that she was likely the only person in England to see an invitation to a Verinder Hall House Party as a curse. Begun as a defiant way to protest her father’s decision to retire to the country after thirty years on the Bench, her mother’s parties had slowly but surely grown in popularity until London joked that it would commit a crime to be invited, if Sir Robert Simmons, former High Court Judge, wouldn’t send it directly to gaol. Everyone who was anyone had spent a weekend with the Simmonses. No one who wanted to be anyone refused an invitation. And yet, Jemma wanted nothing more than to stay as far away as possible.

“Darling, is that you? Did you get my telegram?”

“Yes, but Mother, I’ve already told you I can’t come.”

“What do you mean, you can’t come?”

“Just what I said.   I’ve got an essay.”

“Oh, an _essay_.” Her mother’s relief was almost tangible. “You say it like it’s the German measles.”

“Well, no, but it is a good deal of work.  And Schools-”

“Pooh, they aren’t til June.”

“Which, I might remind you, is next month.”

“So bring your books.  I _must_ have you, darling; I can’t get anyone else so late.  Anyway, I’ve nowhere to put another guest.  As it is I’ve had to put Roger in one of the family rooms and the Weatherbys in together.”

Which was, Jemma knew, a tragedy of the first order. She twirled the telephone cord around her finger and thought carefully.  Truth be told, she probably _could_ finish her essay early if she worked very hard, and her tutor _had_ warned her against swotting this term. But that strain, followed by what was bound to be a ghastly amount of small talk and false smiling…she didn’t know David Weatherby or his new American wife at all, and her cousin Roger was only tolerable company at the best of times. “Wouldn’t the rector and his wife—?”

“Oh, I rather think not. Dot hurt the poor dear’s feelings dreadfully last time she was here; it would not be perhaps the best form to invite for a rematch, don’t you agree?”

Roger’s sometimes-fiance had a habit of that; Jemma herself had smarted under more than one barb flung from Dot’s too-smart lips. “You’ve asked Dot?”

 “I had too, darling, on Roger’s account. And I understand she and Sonia Weatherby run in the same circles—it’s only polite.” Edith closed up Jemma’s objection and continued, “I can’t have an MP _and_ Tony Stark at table with the rector, lovely as he may be…”

“Tony Stark? He didn’t decline suddenly? Only I thought—” She broke off, not wanting to hurt Edith’s feelings by saying what she really thought: that the wealthy American, already for his capricious whims, had found something better to do with his weekend. Like matinees at the music halls.

“Far from it. He sent me a telegram this morning informing me that he had taken it upon himself to invite George Macpherson up as well—it’s thrown my entire seating plan to the winds—”

Which explained the tension in Edith’s voice—Jemma got her penchant for extensive preparation honestly—but didn’t cause enough stir to distract Jemma from the previous sentence. “George Macpherson? Of Macpherson Industries?”

Her mother brushed it off impatiently. “Yes, I suppose. What does it matter? It’s still thrown everything into madness and would do if it were the king.”

It mattered exceedingly, actually. _Macpherson_. The man at the head of the company that invented first poison gasses and then the masks to protect against them; the man who had government contracts by the dozen and patents by the score; the man with twice as many resources as Oxford and Cambridge combined— _only_ the man she had been anxious to meet since she began this project, years ago. Glancing down at her notes, she felt a thrill of excitement rush through her. Hadn’t she known when she woke up this morning with the sun in her face that anything was possible today? “I’ll come,” she said, cutting Edith off mid-sentence. “And I’ll bring Cousin Mary.”

“Marvelous!” Edith exclaimed. Jemma could hear the relief, which told her just how worried her mother had been. “Come for dinner if you absolutely can’t manage before.”

“But Mother, you must let me sit next to Macpherson at dinner. Or bridge. Anything.”

“If I can,” Edith said vaguely. “Tomorrow, darling. Don’t come smelling like your nasty chemicals.” And she rung off abruptly, leaving Jemma to hang up the receiver in a daze, mind spinning like a centrifuge. Today, she had made the largest scientific breakthrough of her career. Tomorrow, she would meet George Macpherson and, she was confident, knock him over with the brilliance of her work. She had a strong if illogical feeling that the day after that would change her life.

 

* * *

 

Leopold Fitz, master of doing more things at once than should be humanly possible, tucked the telephone receiver between his cheek and his ear, carefully sketched the line of a rubber seal, and forced unfelt cheer into his greeting. “Mr. Macpherson’s office; how may I assist you?”  The false smile disappeared as if evaporated by the voice on the other end. “Yes, sir, I’ll be right in.” After carefully covering the old drawings he was examining, he slammed shut his private sketchbook and took up the office diary in one fluid motion. The large flat book required both hands to keep it from slipping out of his grasp, leading to an awkward shuffle as he knocked with his elbow at the door to the Inner Office.

“Come in,” Macpherson called languidly.

Grumbling, Fitz tried to juggle the book under one arm to allow him to twist the knob. Instead he dropped it, hardly holding back a shriek as it landed on his foot and banging his head on the door went he bent to pick it up.

“Good lord, has the entire Czechoslovakian Army suddenly arrived?”

Fitz set his teeth and turned the knob, pushing the door open with his shoulder before scooping up the book and holding it tightly to his chest. The sun, slanting through the plate glass windows and directly into his eyes, threw the rest of the room into deep shadow.  He squinted, trying to adjust his eyes and minimize the pounding in his head.

Sitting behind his desk like a lump of raw dough, he barely lifted his eyelids to acknowledge Fitz’s presence. “Egad, boy. I hope that’s not the face you show our guests. You look like Harrow’s lost at cricket.”

Fitz didn’t care about Harrow cricket and he wasn’t sure why Macpherson, equally Scottish, did either, but he nudged the door shut and kept his comments to himself. “The diary as you requested, sir.”

Leaning back in his chair, Macpherson laced his fingers together and rested them on his protruding stomach. “I’m cancelling everything this weekend. Let’s go through and see about re-scheduling.”

“Cancelling everything?” Fitz heard and hated the panic in his voice. “Cancel it all? Sir, some of these appointments have been made for months. As it was we had to squeeze in that man from the Home Office.”

“Cancel.”

“But one of these meetings is with Mr. Stark,” he tried desperately, “about the—thingummy—you know, the collaboration—”

Macpherson waved the words away with one well-manicured hand, smiling oilily. “Collaboration is upon us. Stark has invited me to the house party at Verinder Hall.”

Fitz’s eyebrows went up. An invitation to Verinder Hall was quite a coup—though he wasn’t sure if it counted second-hand—and he could understand why Macpherson was pleased. There was no reason to look so smug about it, though; it wasn’t as if he had done anything clever. And there was now a great deal of unnecessary work to do in a short amount of time. Fitz checked his watch and groaned inwardly, mentally calculating the amount of work ahead. So much for that lecture at the Royal Science Academy he was trying to make.

It took more than an hour of frustrating work to determine even when Fitz might _try_ to re-schedule the weekend’s appointments, never mind actually doing so. Fortunately, Macpherson had a near psychological aversion to working later than 5 p.m. and sent Fitz out as soon as the church bells began chiming.  Stomping out to his desk, Fitz threw the diary on the desk and himself in his chair, pinching the bridge of his nose where he felt a headache growing. Long sessions with his boss often ended that way, even when he hadn’t nearly concussed himself beforehand. Sometimes Fitz felt that he hadn’t gone a day without a headache since he started at MI.  Thank God, at least for this weekend, he would be free.

Macpherson came out of his office pulling on a pair of pearl-grey gloves, the last touch to his now impeccable evening-wear. “Mr. Stark will be starting at noon tomorrow; he’s coming to the house. There’s no need for me to come into the office before that, I think.”

“No sir,” Fitz agreed heartily, imagining long uninterrupted hours with the files on his desk and no one to distract him. Glorious. “I’ll get these appointments all re-scheduled by the time you get back. You’ll be stopping until Tuesday, yeah?”

Nearly to the door, Macpherson turned around, brow furrowed. “What do you mean ‘you’? You’re coming with me, of course.”

His dull throbbing headache became glass shards through his eyes. “To Verinder Hall? But sir, I think it’s better—”

Macpherson didn’t even stop to listen, his sentence trailing him on the way out the door. “Stark is bringing his secretary, so I’m bringing mine. The house, noon sharp.” The door shut. Fitz had enough time to put his head down on the desk but not enough time to groan miserably before it opened again, Macpherson’s round face appearing around the edge like a ghost. “Bring your suit, Leo. And for God’s sake make sure it fits right.”

He disappeared again. Forever, with any luck—but Fitz didn’t have any luck and never had, as this whole rotten situation clearly proved. Any other man would have left his secretary to hold down the fort while he was out of the office, but not Macpherson. Oh no. He had to drag Fitz down to an interminable house party with the _crème de la crème_ of Society. In his ancient suit. Hell, he thought, scrubbing his hands over his face. This was going to be a weekend in hell.

 

* * *

 

As he packed grumpily, Fitz had made a mental list of all the things that could possibly go wrong this weekend. ‘Death by boredom’ topped it, followed closely by ‘someone gives Macpherson coffee instead of tea in the morning’. Nowhere, however, did ‘Mr. Stark’s car breaks down in some godforsaken lane because the man has no sense of direction or regard for proper speeding laws’ appear. And yet, that, too, happened. Fitz was not blaming the alcohol in the flask Stark kept whipping out, but he did wonder why, with two men who had made their fortunes in mechanics sitting in the front seat, the responsibility for fixing the engine fell to him.

“Leo’s very good at this kind of thing,” Macpherson told Stark. “He should be; his education cost enough.”

“You learn how to work on cars at college in this country?” Stark asked curiously.  “We’ve got some pretty good schools, but I don’t think they have that yet.”

Neither did the University of Edinburgh, Fitz thought, taking out his irritation on the bolt he was tightening; he hadn’t signed himself away, body and soul, to learn something he could pick up in a garage over a weekend. Of course he hadn’t done so to sit chained to a desk with the diary a lead ball around his foot, either. 

“It’s all engineering, surely,” Macpherson said, and Stark shrugged. Fitz barely refrained from slamming the bonnet, letting it down gently instead. The car – a beautiful open Daimler - didn’t deserve to suffer from Fitz’s bad temper.  “All sorted,” he said, wiping his hands on his already-black handkerchief before clambering into the back seat.  Mr. Stark’s secretary, an efficient woman by the odd name of Pepper Potts, handed him a clean one sympathetically.

“I’m always telling Mr. Stark he should take better care of his cars. Thank you for fixing it.”

“No trouble,” Fitz growled, sliding a bit on the seat. “Now if we can only find the beastly road again - ”

She made a map appear from what seemed to Fitz to be thin air and unfolded it with a brisk _snap_. “That, I think, I can handle. Even if they didn’t teach it at my college.”

Despite her helpful directions, it took them another hour-and-a-half to reach the Hall—a tortuous hour-and-a-half, in which Fitz’s only pleasure was counting all the times Stark ran heedlessly over Macpherson’s attempts to speak. He could have done with another topic of conversation, though; there were only so many details one could hear about the palatial mansion Stark was building in Malibu before it got tedious. From Miss Potts’s patiently sanctified expression, he assumed she felt the same. At one point he leaned over and tried to ask her a question, just so they wouldn’t have to listen to the posturing, but since he promptly swallowed a bug and she couldn’t hear him anyway, he gave up and resigned himself to boredom. He might as well become used to it now.

“I’m making an entire wall of glass in my bedroom,” Stark said, “so as to see the ocean. The sun sets into it, which is perfect so I don’t need to worry about making a track for the automatic curtains—”

“Mr. Stark,” Miss Potts cut in coolly, “I think that’s it there.”

Craning his neck, Fitz could just catch a glimpse of a stone house at the end of a long driveway. Thank all things holy this bit was over, at least. “Jolly good eye!” Stark crowed, turning sharply into the pebbled lane. Small white rocks absorbed and threw back the light from the still-bright sun, casting a radiant glow up onto the square two-story building. It was impressive, Fitz had to admit as they came to a stop in front of it. Though not overly large or ostentatious, Verinder Hall projected an image of power, stability, and confidence in one’s position; it was obviously the home of people who were used to authority and not afraid to use it. Just the kind of house that made him feel all hands and feet. Tumbling out of the car, he was aware of every crease and smudge gained during the journey.

The butler, a stiff man with a dark tiny mustache, showed the party into the drawing room, where their host and hostess were waiting to welcome them. Sir Robert Simmons, short but imposing, shook hands dutifully; their hostess, Mrs. Simmons, was more effusive but also, Fitz thought, more irritated. He shifted from one foot to the other uncomfortably. Fortunately, Stark appeared to be entirely unfamiliar with the word “apologetic” and chatted easily, introducing the party with a wave of his hand. “Mr. Macpherson you know. Pepper, my secretary, and Mr. Fitz.”

Mrs. Simmons nodded a greeting at each name, neither her tight smile nor her perfectly waved hair moving an inch. “Very welcome, I’m sure. I’m afraid the other members of the party have already gone up to change for dinner; I assume you’ll want to do the same? Let me show you the way.”

She led the group back into the hall and up the thickly carpeted central staircase, which split at the top into two shorter corridors that made a sharp 90 degree turn and ran back towards the front of the house. Gesturing to the left of these, she explained “Your names are on the doors, and the baggage should be there shortly. The washroom is in the corner, there. The gong will ring at 7:30 sharp for cocktails in the drawing room. Excuse me, please?” Then she turned briskly and disappeared down the right corridor, a slam following a second later.

“This is me,” Stark said, jamming his thumb over his shoulder to indicate the door next to the washroom.  “Does that mean I get first use of the bathroom?”

One corner of Miss Potts’s mouth turned up. “You _might_ want to make sure no one else is in it first.”

Trailing down the hall behind the others, Fitz idly noted the names on the doors. Under each bronze plate, fussily engraved with what he assumed was the name of the room, a small white card was slid onto a metal rack to declare the name of the temporary resident.  _Mr. and Mrs. Weatherby_ , he read on the door called _Hawk_ ; next to that, Macpherson was assigned _Hummingbird_. “Make sure to change your shirt, Leo,” he said before letting himself in.

“Honestly,” he couldn’t stop himself saying, and Miss Potts gave him another sympathetic look. She appeared to be a master of them.

“You haven’t been with him very long, have you?” she asked.

“A year,” he said, embarrassed to have been caught.

“You’ll get used to it. Or you’ll quit. Either way, it’s not like this forever.”

“Thank you?” She smiled and disappeared into her room, which left Fitz to let himself into _Sparrow_. Dark and grimly decorated, the room didn’t have much more than space for a bed. Fitz flung himself onto it face-first, only to pop up sharply when he remembered the grease all over his front. The bedspread now bore witness as well. He groaned, unable to find relief in bad language. The weekend was already off to an auspicious start.


	2. Cocktails & Dinner

Fitz avoided going downstairs as long as possible, but the gong was insistent and he really did try not to be outright rude. Anyway, he was hungry. Cocktail hour, though a wart on the already spotty face of societal expectations, usually included a few snacks to tide him over until dinner. He could handle a few minutes of inane chatter for the posh _hors d’oeuvres_ likely to be served at party like this.

But when he reached the drawing room, the only refreshments in sight were of the liquid variety, and those primarily the clear concoctions so popular nowadays. Worse, the room was already filled with people and his entrance made everyone pause their conversations and stare, just for a second. He felt their cool appraisals mixed with curiosity and flushed underneath it, rolling his shoulders in his too-small jacket. Had his tie fallen apart, as he had been afraid of upstairs?  Had he missed a dirt smudge when washing his face? Then, just as quickly, they returned their attention to whatever they had been doing before. “Not him,” he heard one of the women say disappointedly.

He took advantage of their distraction to make his way directly to the bar, where Sir Robert presided over the bottles of spirits and soda. A young man, whose lazy expression and dandified dress made Fitz instantly dislike him, hovered around it with a large and almost empty glass in hand. “Whisky-and-soda?” Fitz asked.

Sir Robert nodded and began mixing the drink without looking. “Roger, this is Mr. Fitz. Mr. Fitz, my nephew Roger Simmons.”

“Cheer-ho,” Roger said disinterestedly, promptly returning to his previous conversation as if Fitz wasn’t even there. “Honestly, uncle, you have no idea what it’s like these days. Expense after expense; the money goes like water.”

“I’ve some idea,” Sir Robert said evenly, placing two ice cubes into Fitz’s glass and handing it to him, “your cousin is at university too, you know.”

“Well, but, she’s a girl. Girls aren’t expected to give dinners or pay for outings or have cars. They don’t have the same constant drain on their funds, what? All they have to do is pay for clothes.”

“You haven’t got a car now, have you?” Sir Robert asked, casually sipping at his own drink. From the pained expression that flashed across Roger’s face, Fitz guessed this was rather a sore topic. The whole thing, actually, was rather more personal than Fitz felt comfortable with hearing, and he mumbled an “excuse me” before beating a hasty retreat to an unoccupied corner. From that vantage point, he could survey the whole room without being noticed himself; it was a strategy he had created at university and perfected in Macpherson Industries shareholder meetings.  Whether it actually worked or if it was simply that no one ever wanted to talk to him, Fitz had never figured out.  Either way, this party looked to continue the pattern. Grouped on the couches, a tall, distinguished man listened tolerantly to the women on either side of him chattering like monkeys; MacPherson had his one cocktail in hand and was pontificating about Art to Mrs. Simmons and Miss Potts. Everyone appeared content with conversation where they were.  If he was lucky, Fitz thought he might make it all the way to dinner with speaking another word.

Of course, he was not lucky.

Idly wondering why they hadn’t gone in yet and mentally building Mr. Stark’s infamous mechanical drapes, he didn’t notice that the women on the couch had stopped sneaking glances at the doorway and started sneaking glances at him until they both appeared in his line of vision, trapping him in his corner. On their kitten heels, they towered over him; the blond, who looked slightly familiar, had a diamond broach the size of a doorknob; the smoke from the brunette one’s cigarette floated into his eyes and made them water. Fitz gulped like a fish. His experience with women was small.  His experience with women like these, heavily made up and lavishly jeweled, was non-existent.

“Dot Huntington-Smith,” the one with the cigarette said, sticking out her hand to shake. “You can call me Dot; everyone does.”

“Sonia Weatherby.” The other woman’s flat, nasal tones would mark her as an American even if the bold cut of her slinky satin dress didn’t. “You’re Mr. Macpherson’s secretary, right?”

Fitz saw no reason to deny it. “Yes.”

“Is it true he was a war profiteer?”

“What?” He started so hard he nearly sloshed his drink out of the glass.

Miss Huntington-Smith repeated the question, eyes gleaming. “Is it true he was a war profiteer? Everybody knows he was no one before 1914, then all of a sudden he’s at the head of a massive corporation and hand-in-fist with the government.  That doesn’t just happen due to hard work.”

Fitz, not being an idiot, had heard those rumours before, if never so bluntly. They dogged Macpherson’s steps like a shadow, whispering in the corners of every success.  But Fitz’s mother would have never let him accept Macpherson’s help if the rumours were true; neither had he seen, yet, anything to suggest it in the archives. Flat denials, though, would only fan the flames. “Seeing as I was two years old at the time I don’t know. If he were, though, would the government be likely to continue working with him?”

Sonia Weatherby shrugged nonchalantly. “You never know with politicians. They’re likely to do anything for a buck.”

“Sonia! You can say that? When your husband—”

“David knows what I think,” she said, her expression darkening.

That gave Fitz the missing link to place Mrs. Weatherby’s face—he had seen it splashed over the Society pages when she had married David Weatherby, rising Member of Parliament for ---shire and at least 20 years her senior if the wings of grey hair at his temples were any guide. Surveying her now, Fitz was skeptical. She was pretty, if one liked that sort of showy glamour—though very, very tall; honestly, was she wearing shoes or stilts?—but she didn’t seem cultured or well-bred enough for a politician’s wife. Even he knew it was bad form to bad-mouth politicians when your livelihood depended on them. Maybe she had money. Macpherson was eloquent on the ability of money to cover a variety of social ills.

As he thought, the drawing room door opened, causing his interrogators to perk up. When it revealed only a short, scrawny woman with greying hair in a lopsided bun, they sighed into relaxed disappointment. “Will he never come?” Dot Huntington-Smith moaned.

Glancing around the room, Fitz realized why they hadn’t gone in: Stark hadn’t made his appearance yet. Speaking of the power of money…

“Who is that pathetic creature?” Mrs. Weatherby sniffed as if she smelled something dead.

“Mary Farquhar,” Dot explained, taking a drag on her cigarette. “Old dear’s always hanging around here; she’s some relation of Mrs. Simmons, I think.  Poor as a churchmouse, of course.”

More than that, Fitz expected. The beaten, shrinking look of a woman who felt as though she had to apologise for her very existence was a familiar sight on the streets of Glasgow; he had seen it only slightly dimmed in his own mother. ‘Superfluous women,’ they were called, as though any woman was only worthwhile if she had a man to provide meaning to her life. His heart gave a brief beat of sympathy for the unlooked-for guest.

Toying with her broach, Mrs. Weatherby shrugged one bare shoulder. “One could tell she has nothing from her gown – two seasons behind at least.”

“Three, dear. Maybe you got things later in California.”

Mrs. Weatherby’s eyes grew bright and hard. “Oh, not so much later – when you rub elbows with the shining stars of Hollywood you get a pretty good idea of what’s in style.”

Miss Farquhar’s dress didn’t look that different to either Mrs. Simmons or Miss Potts’s, in Fitz’s opinion, but he would rather push splinters under his fingernails than get involved in this conversation. They had apparently forgotten him, anyway, lobbing politely veiled broadsides at each other under the guise of comparing jewels. Fitz slipped back into his mental workshop, trying to calculate the correct ratio between size and power for the tiny motor than ran along the top of Mr. Stark’s theoretical curtain rod. He could do the math in his head, but keeping track of the numbers – also theoretical – was proving a bit more difficult. Digging absentmindedly in his pocket for his notebook, he stopped short when he realized he didn’t have a pencil. Macpherson had dashed it from behind his ear this morning. “Do either of you have a pencil?” he asked, heedless of their conversation.

They looked at him like he’d grown a second head. “Why on earth would I have a pencil?” Mrs. Weatherby asked.

Miss Huntington-Smith giggled dismissively. “Ask Jemma. She’s one of those precious girl-graduettes; I wouldn’t be surprised if she keeps them in her hair.”

“Who’s Jemma?” he asked, scanning the room.

“That one,” Dot pointed, just as Fitz fell headfirst into a pair of deep brown eyes like a river. Yes, he knew that simile was supposed to be used for blue eyes. But he had never seen a blue river, only brown ones that rushed and roared with the strength of mighty depths behind them. That’s what these eyes were like.

Across the room, Jemma kissed her father’s cheek and greeted Roger with more enthusiasm than she felt. If she had her guess, he was still nursing last night’s headache. “That would be the famous Mr. Macpherson talking to Mother and Cousin Mary, I assume, and not the infamous Mr. Stark?”

“You assume correctly,” her father said. “He has not yet graced us with his presence.”

“Oh, he’s not the one Dot’s trying to fascinate over in the corner? I thought he looked a bit young.”

“I hardly think she’s trying to fascinate him,” Roger growled. “Tiny tweedy thing—Macpherson’s secretary, you know.”

Jemma glanced over again, tipping her head appraisingly. He didn’t appear at all tiny or tweedy, only uncomfortable and bored. And he had a nice face, even if he was nearly drilling a hole in her with the strength of his gaze. Maybe he didn’t realize he was doing it.  She smiled. He didn’t smile back. The blue ice storm continued unabated. Who looked at a stranger that way, as if she had done something to offend him by her mere presence?

Tucking her hair behind her ear, she turned back to Roger, smarting. “I shouldn’t worry about Dot. He appears impervious to charm. Is Mr. Macpherson more pleasant?”

“You’ll see at dinner,” her father said, “your mother has you between him and Mr. Weatherby.”

“If we ever go in,” Roger growled, wistfully looking into the bone-dry depths of his tumbler. “Where is that damned Mr. Stark?”

Jemma and her father exchanged a look. Roger was already in one of his moods. He was going to need a quick dressing-down or the whole weekend would be spoiled. “Perhaps I’ll just go introduce myself,” she suggested, noticing that her mother had joined Mr. Weatherby and Miss Potts on the sofas. The less Edith had to hear about Jemma’s career choices, the happier everyone would be.

“Protect him from Cousin Mary,” Sir Robert agreed.

She smiled. On the whole there were worse things than to have a tete-a-tete with Cousin Mary, but not much worse that could happen to one in the course of a house party.  They were nearly impossible to remove oneself from without being rude, which resulted in a humble apology and the general feeling that one had just kicked a puppy. Mr. Macpherson already looked as though he needed an escape.  Indeed, as Jemma made her way to the other group, the older woman was twittering in her usual nervous way: “No, I don’t expect you’d remember; it was during the War. You had a rather lot going on at the time.”

“Ah, indeed.” His forehead cleared. “Yes, 1915, you said? Yes, just about then was when we were developing the new filtration system for our gas masks—we finished that up in early ‘16—”

It was a glorious opening and Jemma was just about to take advantage of it when the door was thrown open with the resounding clatter that usually accompanied the arrival of the Weird Sisters. Every eye in the room turned to see, not Macbeth’s witches, but a short goateed man in a fabulously expensive suit sipping from a solid silver flask as he leaned against the doorjamb. “I do apologise,” he said to the room at large. “Got a little busy with my own private cocktail hour. _Love_ this ‘not having to keep alcohol a secret’ thing.” Screwing the lid on, he stood and offered his arm. “Who am I taking in? I’m starving.”

Edith stood, as calm as if she had planned the whole thing with Mr. Stark beforehand, and drew the whole room’s attention to herself without so much as an _ahem_. Jemma had never been more impressed with her mother’s skill. “You will escort me, Mr. Stark. Since you’re already famished, I’m sure you won’t mind if we just go in?” Without waiting for an answer, she paired everyone else off and they made their way across the hall to the dining room, where the servants, with an air of gratitude, finally brought in the first course. 

Jemma turned to Mr. Macpherson, took a deep breath, and made her opening salvo. “Mr. Macpherson, I couldn’t help but hear you mention your work with poison gasses during the War. I’m experimenting with them myself in my spare time and I was wondering—”

“Experimenting with poison gasses!” he exclaimed, chuckling, “what will the ladies think of next? It’s a good way to get yourself killed, my dear.”

Her smile grew brittle. “It’s mostly theoretical at this point, but I—”

“I wouldn’t worry about it, Miss Simmons. We’ve got all we need to protect against them in the future.  There has never been a better mask than Macpherson’s.”

“Yes, but wouldn’t it be better still if there was no need for a mask? I think it’s possible to create a compound that will neutralize the—”

From her other side, David Weatherby leaned around to speak past her at Macpherson. “The whole question’s merely academic, though; there won’t be another war.  The PM will see to that.”

“Oh, I disagree.”  Macpherson wiped his mouth delicately. “I was just talking with Reggie yesterday—Reginald Cumberland-Boothby, do you know him?—and he was telling me the most horrible things about what’s going on in Italy. I wouldn’t be surprised if we were fighting there much sooner than you think.”

Weatherby glowered. “I know Reggie quite well. He’s never said anything to me about it.”

“Oh, well, you know how it is.  One can say things in one’s club one can’t in the House.” He went on, seemingly not noticing Weatherby’s affronted expression. “And if we do go to war with Italy, we’ll need the masks; one never knows what those hot-blooded Fascists will do.  They’re the largest threat to our security.”

Jemma spied an opportunity and leapt into it. “Yes, which is exactly why I think—”

“Italy’s just an unorganized mass,” Weatherby interrupted. “What we really need to be concerned about is the Socialists. The Labour Party—”

“Do be careful,” Macpherson said, “or you’ll make me very heated. And that would be a waste of this wonderful meal.”

Sighing, Jemma resigned herself to silence for the next three courses at least. Men were so tiresome when they got onto politics. And unfortunately, her mother’s fashionable oval table kept the other members of the party too far away to speak to. Not that anyone appeared to be having a conversation she wished to join. On Macpherson’s other side, Dot was bawling across the table at the woman Jemma presumed to be Mrs. Weatherby, trapping Sir Robert between them with his stuffed squab expression; at the other end, Mr. Stark was proving himself the only person to ever out-talk Cousin Mary. “Automated drapes,” she thought she heard him say, whatever that meant. And directly across from her, Mr. Macpherson’s secretary was staring again. It was really rather unnerving, his dedicated attention, particularly when coupled with a blank face that could be camouflaging anything. She wondered how he had managed to snag such a plum position with social skills like that. Still, he was the only person giving her any attention, so she might as well at least attempt to be pleasant. Wiping her mouth, just in case, she leaned forward over her plate so she didn’t have to scream. “I don’t believe I heard your name. I’m Jemma Simmons.”

The unreadable expression in his eyes turned to alarm. “Fitz,” he said shortly.

Fitz? Was that a first name, last name, pet name—lord, a pet name, what in the world was she thinking? “You’re Mr. Macpherson’s secretary, I believe?”

The alarm turned into something hard and hostile. Jemma felt as though she was observing a chameleon; she had never seen someone so bad at hiding his emotions. “Yes,” he said, even more brusquely than before, and determinedly looked over her shoulder. She turned, wondering what he was looking at. Nothing was there except the pink-and-gold light of the setting sun.  Well, then. He obviously didn’t want to talk to her, after all. Nor did his boss, which was more to the point.  And if everyone from Macpherson Industries was going to ignore her work so utterly, she had better have stayed up at Oxford.  Slumping in her seat, she pushed her food around on her plate and sighed again. It was going to be a long meal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Agatha Christie never says what year is it, so I didn't either. Regardless, the story is set in 1937 and England DOES have a few things to worry about besides the Fascists...not that one would know it from their behavior at the time.
> 
> Next chapter will be out on Monday, and in it FitzSimmons have a proper conversation, I swear.


	3. After Dinner

Afterwards, it always felt to Jemma as if that first dinner dragged on for a year.  Actually, Mrs. Simmons hurried everybody along rather more than she would have liked; if they had taken the scheduled amount of time to eat the whole evening would spill over into the early hours of the morning and make Sir Robert, a tyrant about the proper amount of sleep, cross.  At nine o’clock on the nose, therefore, she rose to her feet to signify that dinner was over, leading the other women into the drawing room for the prescribed twenty minutes of chat before the men joined them. Bringing up the end of the procession, Jemma looked bleakly into the rest of the evening. She knew what would come next. After painful general conversation while the men drank brandy and smoked (she supposed), the two groups would merge and play exactly four hands of bridge before going to bed at midnight.  If one enjoyed bridge, as Edith did, the evening could hardly improve.  If one did not enjoy bridge, as Jemma did not, the evening was akin to torture.  It would be mind-numbingly dull _with_ someone to talk to, and Jemma didn’t have even that.

She settled into the corner of the sofa, thinking regretfully of the translation of Svedborg’s latest paper that she had stashed in the hall table, and put on her most interested expression.  She had no idea what the other ladies were talking about yet, but she had learned the hard way the necessity of at least appearing to pay attention.

“I think we all must envy you, Miss Farquhar,” Dot was saying. “You were certainly receiving a generous amount of attention.”

“Well, you couldn’t blame him.” Mrs. Weatherby carefully smoothed out her skirts. “Mr. Fitz wasn’t exactly talkative.  Did he speak to you at all, Miss Potts?” When the other woman didn’t respond, she asked again. “Miss Potts?”

“Oh, sorry.”  She shook her head, wincing a little. “No, he didn’t.  But remember we drove up together; I think we all said what we had to then. And, then, silence is often a virtue for a secretary.”

“That was the only reason Mr. Stark was talking to me, I’m sure,” Cousin Mary put in timidly. “He was telling me about the house he’s building. It sounds rather marvelous.”

“Is it, Miss Potts?” Dot and Mrs. Weatherby both turned to the secretary, who was now shading her eyes with one hand.

“What? Oh, yes, it’s quite something.”

Jemma heard a wry undertone in the response that suggested Miss Potts wasn’t quite as impressed by her boss as everyone else seemed to be—natural, of course, but also interesting enough to make her reconsider her previous assessment of conversational partners.  Not tonight, though.  Unless Jemma missed her guess, Miss Potts was in the throes of a rotten headache. “Are you feeling all right, Miss Potts?”

She stood, half-shutting her eyes against the light. “It’s just a headache, but I’m sorry, I think I’d better go to bed, if you’ll excuse me?”

“Before bridge?” 

The tightness around Mrs. Simmons’s eyes contradicted the concern that dripped from her question. If Miss Potts went to bed before bridge, the already determined bridge tables would not be either usable or even. Oh, one could play with a dummy, of course, but it took some of the thrill from the game and was Not Really an Acceptable Option for Edith. Beside Jemma, Cousin Mary shifted uncomfortably.

“I’m afraid so,” Miss Potts said with a firm smile. “I’m terrible at bridge, anyway. You’ll be much happier I’m not playing.”

“Oh, I’m sure that’s not true. But if you must, you must.”

Edith offered an opportunity to make the Right Choice; Miss Potts side-stepped it neatly. “I am sorry.  I’m sure I’ll be all right in the morning.”

“We shall hope so.”  Striding to the other end of the room, where the housemaids were putting up the card tables, every line of her back radiating disapproval, Edith immediately began issuing new instructions.  As Miss Potts made her polite excuses to the rest of the women and left, gently shutting the door, Jemma couldn’t help but envy her. Feigning a headache, smuggling Svedborg up to her room, and avoiding the whole ghastly situation sounded ideal. Doing so, though, would leave ten people for three bridge tables and make it impossible to play; Jemma didn’t want to see what her mother would do in that case.

She tried to brazen it out for another ten minutes. Conversational attempts at the coronation, the bombing at Guernica, and the recent discovery of element 43 failed miserably, lost in Dot’s poorly-concealed jabs at her academic pursuits and the lazy ignorance of Mrs. Weatherby. Cousin Mary, cowed by the flash of their gems, said nothing, and Jemma struggled on alone.

“Oh, elements,” Dot said now, “frankly, I can’t see what it matters that we’re made of tiny things no one can see.  What has that got to do with real life as we know it? A waste of time, if you ask me.”

“And money,” Mrs. Weatherby added—so like an American, Jemma thought irritiably.

“Oh, absolutely. And one’s health, I shouldn’t think—absolutely ruins your looks.”

She leapt to her feet, unable to swallow it politely anymore. “Excuse me, I must go powder my nose.” On second thought, she realised as she fled into the hall, that was likely giving Dot more ammunition, but she didn’t care. It made her crazy to hear her life’s work belittled by anyone, particularly people with brains like dandelion fluff. She was doing important work, useful work, meaningful work; someday people would acknowledge it. They had to. Grabbing Svedborg from his hiding place, she went into the washroom under the stairs and checked her watch. She would allow ten minutes to build up a reserve of goodwill, after which the men would have rejoined the party and she could seek refuge at her father’s side. He, at least, wouldn’t make sly or patronizing comments.

It was actually closer to fifteen minutes later—one couldn’t help it if one got swept away reading—when she exited to find Sir Robert idling in the hall himself. “I should have known it would be you in there,” he said with a smile. “Only you would think to use the washroom as a bolt-hole.”

Rolling up the pamphlet, she returned it to the hall table drawer. “And what are you doing?”

“Guilty. I simply couldn’t take another minute of those blasted people without a breather.”

“Why Mother loves it so, I’ll never know.”

He gave a long-suffering sigh and offered her his elbow, patting her hand when she tucked it into the crook. “And you didn’t even get out of dinner what you wanted, did you? I thought I heard a Facist v. Socialist argument at that end of the table.”

She rolled her eyes to the heavens, drawing a laugh. “Oh lord. My only consolation is that I won’t be forced into bridge with them. You don’t suppose there’s any chance Mother would allow that I’ve done my duty for the evening and let me off?”

“Certainly. When primroses bloom in December.”

“And likely not even then. There was a near skirmish over Miss Potts going to bed with a headache.”

“Miss Potts has already gone?” He shook his grey head somberly. “There’s no escape for us, then.”

But when they entered the drawing room there were only two of the card tables standing, the third folded up and lurching out of the room between two of the housemaids. Jemma and her father shared a look, which Edith caught and answered with a brittle smile. “Miss Potts has had to retire for the evening, and I’m afraid Mr. Fitz doesn’t play.”

The secretary slouched on the sofa facing the door, neatly avoiding the need to interact with both the party grouped around the sideboard flicking open a series of silver lighters and the heated political discussion taking place—much to Mrs. Weatherby’s sigh-heaving chagrin—at the near table. “Never came up in my education,” he said, gouging a hole in the carpet with his heel. Surprised by the thickness of his brogue, Jemma slipped into place and mirrored him, trying one last smile—anyone who didn’t play bridge was a friend of hers. His gaze skittered past like she was a monster.

“No loss there!” Stark took the cigarette from between his lips and popped it neatly into Dot’s, pulling out another for himself. Glaring, Roger snapped his case shut and stomped over to sit next to Mr. Fitz, who subtly shifted closer to the arm. “I’m bored to death of bridge—can’t imagine what this whole country sees in it. The only real game is poker.”

“So let’s play poker!” Dot cried, leaning closer to the millionaire. “Mrs. Simmons, you have chips, don’t you?”

“I’m afraid not, darling. There isn’t much call for them here.”

Uncowed, she turned to Roger. “Don’t you travel with some, darling?”

He deliberately put out his un-smoked cigarette before answering, not turning to look at her. “I have a few, yes.”

“Get them, won’t you? I’m sure Mr. Stark knows all the latest variations.”

Stark winked at Dot, practically causing her to melt into a puddle. Jemma rolled her eyes. “Sure do.  I’ll teach you, Mrs. Weatherby, and Miss Simmons until you can beat the pants off any man in this island.”  

Alarmed to hear her name brought into it and not at all relishing the prospect, Jemma protested. Roger agreed, more fervently. “I say, that’s a bit stiff, what? Using a man’s chips and not inviting him to join the game?”

“That’s very true,” Edith said smoothly as Mr. Stark pulled Dot to a seat at the table nearest the bar. “Why doesn’t Mrs. Weatherby come play bridge and Roger can have her seat.”

Sonia took a long, languid drag and leaned back from the table, her hand slipping out from under her husband’s.  “Oh, no. I’m playing poker if there’s a chance at a good game.”

Mr. Weatherby broke off in the middle of a sentence and turned to her.  “Darling, wouldn’t you rather—”

“No, sweetheart, I wouldn’t!”  Jabbing out her cigarette, she flounced past him to the other table and sat down next to Stark with a defiant thump.

Cousin Mary coughed. No one knew where to look. From the corner of her eye, Jemma saw Mr. Fitz looking as if he wanted to disappear into the cushions.

Finally, Mr. Weatherby laughed, a hearty guffaw that didn’t reach his eyes.  “Just as well—I almost always end down when I play with Sonia.”

The party relaxed, just a little, and Edith briskly stepped into the void, sorting out the tables like it had been her plan all along. Jemma watched with slight awe, always impressed by her mother’s skill.  In no time at all, Stark, Dot, and Sonia Weatherby were settled at the far table while Roger ran up to get the chips; David and George MacPherson sat across from each other at the near one, still discussing the shake-up at the Foreign Office.  Edith looked at the remaining party speculatively.  Jemma held her breath.  She was a rotten player; surely with both her father and Cousin Mary left, Mother would pick one of them to fill out the table?

Edith’s gaze came to a rest.  Jemma let out a sign of relief.  “Cousin Mary, you’ll be the fourth, won’t you?  I know how you enjoy a game of bridge.”

“Not tonight, Edith, I think.  I’m feeling rather a touch of the _megrims_ myself.”

“Oh, really? Are you sure you can’t-”

“No, I think not.” Cousin Mary shook her head firmly. “I’ve already played my fill of bridge this week.”

The cousins shared a significant look Jemma didn’t quite understand, and Edith subsided graciously.  “Sir Robert will play then. I’m sure he won’t mind.”

Jemma glanced at her father, who was carefully arranging his features.  “Of course.  You must go to bed if you’re ill.  I like nothing better than a few hands of bridge on a Friday night.”

A bold-faced lie if Jemma had ever heard one, but her mother accepted it without a blink. “Very well then, Sir Robert will be the fourth and Jemma can amuse Mr. Fitz.”

The secretary’s head jolted up.  “That’s really not necessary-”

“Oh, Mother, I really think-”

Edith turned to her daughter and smiled.  Jemma quailed under it. She knew what that smile signified; she had seen it often enough growing up.  “Or would you rather play, darling?”

No response was needed. Edith sat down, secure in her power, and the game began.

“Two trumps.”

“Three hearts.”

 “No bid.”

Fitz stared at the carpet in front of him, smoothing it out with his shoe. Oh lord, what was he supposed to say to this girl, this beautiful girl with brook-brown eyes who was apparently studying at Oxford and doing research on poison gasses in her spare time? He couldn’t hardly look at her without sputtering. As was evidenced by their conversation—or lack thereof—at dinner, even though she had spoken to him first and he was crazy to know what she expected her compound to neutralize.  But he couldn’t say just _anything_. He didn’t want to sound a complete fool. 

Then again, the very next question she had asked was about Macpherson—maybe she, like those other girls, was just interested in his boss. Just because she was smart didn’t mean she wasn’t a snob. Her cousin was, he thought as he watched Roger re-enter the room and throw the chips down on the table with bad grace. Her mother likely was too. But she didn’t look like that, not really. Fitz hadn’t forgotten the smile she gave him before dinner. Would a girl too proud to speak to secretaries who were less than _pukka sahib_ smile at him like that? He didn’t think so.

He watched her twirl her bracelet round and round on her wrist, mentally trying and discarding a thousand opening lines.

_What are you reading at Oxford?_

_How did you become interested in poison gasses?_

_Weren't you excited by the discovery of element 43?_

“Have you considered the effect on the eyes?”

She looked up, confusion and a little offence falling across her face. “What?”

Stupid, idiot.  That was the worst opening of all. He stammered over his explanation. “Only I heard you at dinner talking about poison gasses.  Does your compound neutralize the effects—”

Her expression cleared instantly, settling into something like pleasure. “Oh! Yes, but not on tissues—at least not yet. It’s rather difficult to get access to samples for a side-project as an undergraduate. And a female one, at that.” She smiled, but there was a twinge of bitterness in it. “But it _does_ bond with both phosophene and chlorine to, in theory, render them inert, mitigating the damage to the body.”

She said it matter-of-factly, as if it wasn’t a major breakthrough to have one compound to combat both of the major gasses. Even during the War, when gas was creating causalities by the millions, all Macpherson Industries’s efforts hadn’t been able to create one. This was tremendous, potentially revolutionary; it could change the whole industry! But no, Fitz caught himself, he had to proceed with caution. It could be a mistake. “In theory,” he repeated. “You haven’t actually tested it yet?”

“Yes and no. It does change the chemical composition of the gasses to something else. I’m just uncertain exactly what effects that gas has on the soft tissues. But I only synthesized a stable compound yesterday; there wasn’t quite enough time to obtain a sufficient number of rats between then and now.”

His mind whirring, he shoved aside the image of gassed white rats and asked the next pertinent question. “What applications do you see it having?”

The look she shot him was eloquent enough; he didn’t need the condescension dripping from her answer to know it was a stupid question. “Obviously, to keep people from getting gassed.  What other use—”

“No, I know, I meant, how would you use it? What form is it in? Is it in a filter or—”

“Oh, I see. I apologise.” And she did look abashed. “At present it’s in a gaseous state, able to be directly inhaled. I’d like to get it into a solid form to put into a creame that soldiers could use on their faces and hands, perhaps even in their nostrils—it wouldn’t be pleasant, but more pleasant than being gassed. Then one would only need a small mask to protect the lungs, I think? But I confess I don’t know a great deal about the construction of gas masks to know how that would work. That was part of the reason I wanted to talk to Mr. Macpherson. He wasn’t—” She stopped and screwed up her face, obviously trying to think of the most polite way to put it.

“Interested,” Fitz supplied.

“Forthcoming,” she said instead.

“No, he wouldn’t be.” Naturally, he would be too wrapped up in his dinner and schmoozing to listen to this mere slip of a girl with an idea that could make millions and help millions more. But Fitz, his notebook burning a hole in his pocket, wasn’t. “But, um, I could show you how they work. If you like. I’ve got—” he scrabbled in his jacket where other men kept their cigarettes and pulled out the tiny book “—some of the specs in here.”

He expected hesitation, but her eyes lit up and she stood with a swirl of peacock-blue skirts. “Oh, have you? That’s marvelous. I’m really working with one hand behind my back without a proper understanding of the technological necessity.”

She sat beside him with a poof of something flowery, putting her chin in her hand and bending over the book. Gulping, he tried not to think about if it was lilies or lavender she smelt of and flipped to the correct page. “There’s three kinds, really: the hood, the canister, and the filter. They’ve got different methods, too—you’d probably be looking more for the canister or the filter kind.”

“Yes, likely.” Gently touching the page, she looked up at him with wide, admiring eyes. “I’ve never seen technical drawings like this before. Did you do them?”

“Yes,” he said, hesitant. Lord, she was pretty, and it was definitely lavender. The air seemed filled with it.

“They’re beautiful.” Frowning, she took a corner of the notebook and turned it towards her. “Is this a gas mask, too? Only it’s unlike—”

Damn, why hadn’t he remembered that was in there? He hadn’t meant anyone to see it. “That’s nothing.” Snapping the book shut, he angled his body away from hers and cleared his throat. “Actually, these drawings are really much too small to show you properly.  We’d really need something larger. A piece of butcher paper would be ideal. But I don’t expect you have any of that just lying about.”

“Not inside, no.” She glanced over at the bridge table, where the elder members of the party appeared to be in the middle of a very intense hand. “But I’ve got some in my lab. If you’d like you could…”

“Now?” he blurted, making her jump. It must be nearly ten o’clock; surely any labs would be decently closed. And surely any father would object to his daughter going out into the night with a man they’d only just met.

“Who will miss us?” She gestured to the tables. “They’ll be going for another two hours at least. I’ve got nothing better to do, have you?”

“No, but—”

She stood, grabbing her left wrist with her other hand and looking fixedly at the carpet. Her voice was hard. “If you’d rather not, it’s fine. I only thought it might be more interesting than this.”

It didn’t take a genius to see that if he didn’t say something quick, she was going to go back over to the other couch to stare silently at the ground all evening. Fitz, being a genius, knew that if that happened he was going to lose something he would regret for a very long time. It was a split-second decision, really.  Stopping his ears to the part of him that shouted objections he stood as well, tucking his notebook away. “I’d like to. Will I need my Burberry?”

The light that came into her eyes sent his reservations to Timbuktu. “No, it’s not far. I’ll bring coffee to keep us warm. Just let me get a torch.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Despite extensive research on gas masks, I confess that I am still not entirely confident how the chemical reactions inside work. Please accept my humble apologies for the hand-waving.


	4. The Icehouse

Their steps crunched the gravel underfoot as they made their way up the kitchen path towards what Miss Simmons explained was the old icehouse. “Mother got tired of having to replace my carpets, so she and Dad ran electricity out to it so I could do my experiments in there. Or, as she calls them, my ‘messes’.”

Fitz couldn’t see her face very well in the leftover glow of the torch she carried, but the frustration was plain enough in her voice. “I understand,” he said, remembering his own tiny closet at home. “My mam called my workshop a rubbish heap.”

She kicked at a rock with one sandal. “Experimenting is messy work, I think. When you’re discovering something new you haven’t got time to tidy up after yourself. Obviously you’ll keep the really dangerous stuff neat, but the rest of it goes too fast.” Fitz had just enough time to worry about what she meant by ‘really dangerous stuff’ before they came to a stop in front of a stolid, squat building. Handing him the torch, she dug around in her pocket and pulled out a key. “I’ve got to keep it locked up because of the things I keep in here. My chemist made me promise before he would sell me anything.”

That was even more terrifying. “What have you possibly got—” he began, only to fall silent as she swung the door open in front of him and flicked on the light. In the warm orange glow of the overhead fixture, it looked like an Aladdin’s cave of scientific wonders: microscopes, a framed periodic table, a Bunsen burner, a set of encyclopedia, a vast array of glass bottles and tubes. The center of the room was taken up by a high wooden table that served, he would imagine, as a counter. It was the perfect height to stand and work at, anyway. The walls were lined with shelves and cabinets full of drawers. As she turned on smaller lamps in the corners, he peered into a large wooden one standing open next to him. The top two shelves were taken up with powders and liquids in small vials, neatly labeled with chemical formulae; below, a set of scalpels (scalpels? What in the name of all things holy did she use those for?) sat next to stacks of tiny boxes labeled ‘Slides – leaves and stems”, “Slides – hairs”, “Slides – offal”. His eyes grew wider at that last.

Jemma waited for him to finish his perusal, somehow managing not to wring her hands as she tamped down the anxious feelings fluttering in her stomach. This was her lab. She had built up from pennies-worth of talcum and baking soda, and she was proud of it, but she had long since given up expecting anyone else to see it the same way. “Where Jemma mucks about,” they called it, not even trying to understand how serious she was about the work she did here. She shouldn’t expect Mr. Fitz to be any different despite his notebook full of projects—in all probability he didn’t even like her. She hadn’t forgotten the way he looked at her before dinner. Only she thought that she had seen a spark of interest before she had trampled all through it by looking at work he obviously wasn’t ready to show anyone—oh, she recognised that quick dismissal for what it was—and had only wanted to show him that she wasn’t a threat. But maybe it wasn’t a tit-for-tat thing. Maybe she had been wrong to bring him out here. Lord, she hoped not. Before she had ruined it, they had been having the first interesting conversation of the weekend.

“Are these really slides of offal?” he asked finally, turning around with the small cardboard box in hand.

“Yes.”

He replaced them hastily and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. “Never been an enthusiast, myself. Which is strange, coming from Scotland, because we eat a lot of it.”

“Perhaps that’s why?” she offered, unsure if he was making a joke.

“Likely. I don’t know if you’ve ever eaten haggis, but…” Finished wiping his hands, he returned his handkerchief. “There’s a lot of slides here for a chemist.”

“I’m not a chemist, not exactly. Who told you that?”

“Oh, you’re not? Sorry, only I assumed—with the poison gasses—”

“I’m an organic chemist. It’s a newer discipline that specializes in—”

“—the chemistry of living things, I know.” Her surprise must have shown on her face because he went blank again, his next words bitter. “It’s not exactly my discipline, but I do work for Macpherson Industries.”

“Of course,” she said, embarrassed to be caught out, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He looked down at the ground and kicked at one of the paving stones. “Everybody does it. You don’t expect a secretary to have any sort of degree, unless it’s in languages or something.”

His accusation stung; she wasn’t one of those sort of people. “It wasn’t that at all,” she responded, mouth pursed. “If I thought about it at all, I would have rather assumed you had to have a decent education to be in your position. Only that’s never stopped anyone else from being completely ignorant of what I do.”

He came up to the table and drummed his fingers against it, an irritated expression on his face. “Well, that’s foolish. Bio-chemistry is only going to grow exponentially from where it is now; within the next fifty years it will be one of the most important disciplines in the field.”

It was as if he had taken the words right out of her mouth. “Not quite exponentially, as that’s—”

“—growing at a constant rate, yeah, but I didn’t mean it literally.”

“No, of course not—but it _is_ growing by leaps and bounds every year. We’ve only just scraped the surface of what we can learn about life and it’s all brand-new information; who knows what kind of breakthroughs lie ahead? We might even be able to discover the very foundations of life itself! Just the other day my tutor was saying—” She broke off, suddenly aware that her voice was rising in volume and excitement. How often had Mother told her no one wanted to hear her prattle on? She didn’t want to scare him off, not yet at least. Dropping her gaze to her hands, she began playing with her bracelet. “That’s why I became a bio-chemist. It’s horrid to only learn things people already know.”

She expected a change of subject or a nervous chuckle—people usually did one or both of those things when she reached uncomfortable levels of enthusiasm—but he only nodded eagerly, his curls falling over his forehead. “I feel the same. In engineering, the only limits we have on what’s possible are what we can imagine—we might have to invent four things to get where we want to be, but we can nearly always reach it in the end.”

“So you’re an engineer, then?” she asked, slotting that into place.

A shadow fell across his face. “Yes.”

“Where did you read?”

“University of Edinburgh.”

She canted her head to the side, considering. She didn’t know much about engineering, nor the University of Edinburgh, but it seemed odd that one went from university to mere secretarial work. Perhaps he hadn’t got a very good degree. Or perhaps Mr. Macpherson required a higher level of technical proficiency from his employees.  “You must like working for Macpherson, then. Do you get much opportunity to—”

“No.” He looked down at the table, mouth in a taut line. Blanching, she did the same. Conversation was not usually this difficult for her, but apparently he had sore spots like bad roads had potholes, covered over by the black ice of a long winter. One could come to smash at any moment. It would be best, perhaps, to stick to science proper—they had come out here for a reason, hadn’t they? But before she could remind him of the diagrams he had promised to draw, he tapped the wooden box beside him, glancing at her with apologetic eyes. “Is this a centrifuge?”

She huffed, grateful for the change of topic and wanting to hide it. “Nominally. It’s an old hand-cranked one and I can’t make it go fast enough to be useful. I’d like to get a motorized one but they’re so dear, I can’t manage it out of my allowance.”

“You might be able to motorize this one. I could look at it for you. If you have a screwdriver—”

“Yes! Somewhere.” Scrabbling in drawers and cupboards, she eventually located the single screwdriver she kept to lever things open in one of the cabinets behind her. “Here it is. I hope it’s the right size.”

Giving it a brief glance, he nodded once. “It’ll do.” Then, to her surprise, he pulled his bow tie loose and began shrugging out of his dinner jacket. At her involuntary _eep_ he stopped, one arm free. “Sorry, d’you mind—only it’s a bit small.”

She smiled at the red tint creeping up his ears, knowing a matching one was trailing up the back of her neck. They were both being silly; one couldn’t work in formal attire. “Not at all.” It wasn’t as though she hadn’t seen a man in shirt sleeves before.

Gingerly peeling the other sleeve off, he brushed it with the back of his hand and laid it on a shelf behind him. Without the formal strictness of the black coat, he looked to be hardly older than she was herself. “Don’t tell Macpherson, yeah? He’ll have my hide.”

“I promise,” she said, faltering as he took out his cuff links in two quick motions and began rolling up his sleeves. That she hadn’t been expecting. One didn’t usually show one’s forearms in the presence of a lady unless one was rowing or playing tennis or something of that nature; even in the labs at college the male students remained decorously clothed. Then again, she doubted any of her classmates had as well-proportioned hands and wrists as Mr. Fitz did. She watched his controlled and confident motions with interest, noting the strength and delicacy as he flipped the screwdriver between his fingers and began taking her centrifuge apart. Really, they were rather lovely.

“Do you use this in your gas experiments?”

She jumped, turning away to adjust a light that was already providing sufficient illumination. Perhaps it would be best not to tell anyone about this—Mr. Fitz wouldn’t be the only one missing a hide if her mother even guessed what she had been thinking. “Er, no. I used to use it when I was studying blood, stomach contents, that kind of thing. It was during my dissection phase.”

He quickly set the spinning drum on the table. “You did dissections in here?”

“Of course; even then I knew better than to do them in my house. My mother’s not too keen.”

“I’m not, either.” Making a face, he pulled the wooden case from around the gears and took them up in both hands. “This is what I like. Give me a nice bit of machinery any day.”

“But the body _is_ machinery, a beautiful incredible living machine—the interconnectedness of each system—”

He cut in, protesting, but she plowed on with her point; he did the same, a little louder, finishing his thought and responding to hers with no empty space between them. Jemma responded just as fiercely. He scored a point in kind. She poured coffee and he continued pulling her centrifuge to pieces, and they only realized when they were knee-deep in a conversation about Madame Curie that they had ceased arguing long before, the fire of debate mellowed into the glow of discussion caused by two sharp minds rubbing against each other. Jemma felt at once swimmy-headed and clear as crystal, as if she had climbed to the top of a great hill and could suddenly see for miles. And this man was a secretary? No. He was a genius, with deep knowledge of his own subject and a more-than-passable knowledge of hers as well, well-read and intuitive and capable of keeping pace with her even in her most abstruse arguments. It was ridiculous to imagine him keeping a diary for that pompous fool she had sat next to at dinner.    

Fitz watched her talk in a daze, forgetting, every now and then, to breathe. In all his life, he had never expected to meet someone who could match him scientific step-for-step, let alone add to and expand on his ideas. She was brilliant. Still beautiful—he was a man, he certainly noticed that—but so much more. Eyes flashing, light hitting her hair like a halo, so bright it was all he could do to keep up with her—she was so vibrant that he felt like he shined just being in her presence. He didn’t remember what they talked about, after. Nor did he care. He was having the best night of his life.

She came to the end of an idea and sighed, taking a sip of the now-cold coffee.  “So, what do you think? Is it salvageable?”

“What?”

She indicated the centrifuge with a nod of her head. If one could call it that anymore; stricken, he looked down to see that he had separated every single piece of it from another, leaving nothing more than a pile of gears and screws. “Oh! Um, yes. I’ve got a little carried away.”

“So have I,” she smiled, “don’t fret about it. And we’ve entirely neglected the schematics you were going to draw me, but we can do that just as well tomorrow.”

In what had passed, he had completely forgotten. Tomorrow, he repeated mentally, relishing the idea. “They’re not difficult. It was only that they’re hard to see in my notebook.”

She smiled again, drooping a little where she sat on a high stool. It was likely late, Fitz thought. He should do the gentlemanly thing and suggest retiring, but he found himself reluctant to let the evening end. Perhaps he would wake up and find it had all been a dream. If so, there was one thing he had to know before they went inside. “May I ask you a question?”

“Anything.”

“Why poison gasses?”

She blinked, surprised. “What?”

“Because I’m interested in them, too.” The words spilled out of his mouth, having been waiting to be spoken since she had first mentioned the subject at dinner. “I’ve been doing research in MI’s archives about them, trying to come up with a better design for a mask that won’t be so likely to get lost—too many men died because their masks got caught in No Man’s Land and they didn’t realize—I can’t help believing there’s got to be a better way than what we did before and your compound is the first thing I’ve heard of that might make a real difference—only, of course, my uncle is too willingly blind to see it—I couldn’t believe it when you mentioned it at dinner—”

“Mr. Macpherson is your uncle?”

He stopped mid-flow and met her wide-eyed surprise. Hell, he hadn’t meant to say that.

“That explains it, then.”

Oh yes, there it was. All through school, all through university, even now when he was introduced to partners or rivals. “That explains it,” they said with their eyes and their mouths. Explains why you, who shouldn’t be here, are. “Explains what?” he asked bitterly, not meeting her eyes.  

“Why such a brilliant engineer and scientist is working as a secretary.”

There was not a trace of irony in her voice and her eyes, when he managed to meet them, were kind. He ducked his head, unable to accept the sympathy he saw offered, and cleared his throat. “Oh, yes. Luckily for me, nepotism is alive and well.”

“Do you actually feel lucky?” He looked at her sharply and she bit her lip, looking down at her hands. “Only I know how I feel when people don’t respect my work; I can’t imagine not being able to do it, except on the sly…I’m sorry. That’s rather personal, isn’t it? Mother’s always after me about my small talk.”

“ ‘s fine,” he mumbled, not looking at her either. It was never comfortable to listen to someone summing up the futility of one’s life, and she had hit the nail bang on. At first, perhaps, when he was a young boy excited by the prospect of proper school and advanced learning— then, Uncle George’s offer had seemed a stroke of miraculous luck.  When had he stopped feeling so? Was it when every single boy at his public school had snubbed and used him by turns? When he had been largely ignored and bored to tears in university? Or had he kept a modicum of hope alive until the first day at Macpherson? No matter when. He hadn’t truly been lucky his whole life. Until—he glanced up at her, the first person he had ever known to both understand and think what he had to offer worthwhile. Until now, perhaps? He couldn’t keep himself from resting a hand on the back of his neck, even though he knew the gesture screamed _vulnerability_.  “Truthfully, I hate every minute. If I could think of a way out I would take it, but I can’t. I’ll be there until one of us dies, I think.”

“Oh no, don’t say that! There must be another—” A huge yawn split her face mid-sentence, too big to be hidden behind the hand that flew to cover it. “Golly, I’m sorry—what time is it?”

He checked his watch and began rolling down his cuffs. “Nearly one.”

“Lord, we’ll never hear the end of it. Roger has a perfect genius for remembering these kinds of things.”

“I’m sorry,” he said as she dumped the dregs of her coffee back into the thermos and reached for his bone-dry cup.

She stopped, surprised. “For what?”

Unsure, he offered, “monopolizing your evening?”

An odd look crept across her face, but she quickly dispelled it with a laugh. “Don’t be! This is the nicest time I’ve had at one of these since…I can’t remember. Will you put out that lamp?”

He did so, glad for the excuse to avoid responding. One didn’t just tell a girl this was the nicest time one could remember since ever. Making sure he had his cufflinks, he grabbed his dinner jacket and plunged into it on his way to the door, which he held open while she turned out the light and passed through. “Let me take the things while you—”

“Thank you.” She locked up and straightened, brushing her hair back over her shoulders before gesturing down the path. “It’s such a lovely night.”

“It is,” he agreed, smelling lavender as she brushed against him.

“I’ve heard that in California the nights are so warm one can go bathing by moonlight. Do you suppose that’s true?”

“Mr. Stark could probably tell you.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Miss Potts could as well. I’d rather talk to her. I don’t think Mr. Stark and I would have a good conversation.”

“More monologue, I think.”

“Yes.” She laughed and he joined her, the sound jogged out of him by pure delight. “Something tells me, Mr. Fitz, that you’re the only interesting person here, and I only like to talk with interesting people. Prepare yourself for a good deal of my company.”

“I’ll try to suffer through,” he said, making her laugh again.

They left the thermos, cups, and torch on the kitchen table and made their way up into the hall. To their right, lights still blazed in the drawing room. “Still at it?” he asked, astonished. She rolled her eyes, climbing the stairs with her dress pooling behind her.

“Must be the poker players. Mother would never allow bridge to go so late. But whatever the guests want, I suppose.”

“Yeah, I suppose.” They reached the landing at the top of the stairs. The moonlight flooded through the large bay window and spilled over them, turning her face to ivory. It was late, so late, but he found himself hesitating over his good night. “Well—”

She put a finger to her lips and touched his arm with her other hand. “The echoes are horrible here. Good night, Mr. Fitz. Tomorrow, the gas masks?”

“Yeah, of course,” he whispered. “Good night.”

She smiled and turned away. He watched, not aware he was staring, until she disappeared around the corner.  


	5. Saturday Morning

The dazed expressions of the not-quite awake greeted Jemma when she finally made her way down to breakfast the next morning, an hour later than was her wont. From the empty spaces at the table, however, she gathered she wasn’t the only person to have made a late night of it. Serving herself a nice bit of streaky bacon from the buffet and pouring coffee—the better to combat the results of too much coffee last night—she slid into a place between Roger and Miss Potts, neither of whom looked very talkative. The door was directly behind her, allowing for a quick exit if necessary. It might not be, though; it looked to be a beautiful day and she had the interesting prospect of more time in the Icehouse with Mr. Fitz to anticipate. There was no reason not to allow her natural optimism the upper hand.

 Roger grunted a response to her cheery ‘good morning’.

“Where’s Dot?”

“Damned if I know,” he growled, picking at his tomato. “No doubt cosying up to Stark somewhere.”

“Oh no, that’s unlikely.” Miss Potts poked her head around Jemma to answer him. “He’s still in bed, too.  We won’t see him for awhile yet.”

“Shouldn’t wonder, with how lit he was last night.” That was the proverbial pot calling the kettle black, but Roger didn’t relent under Jemma’s skeptical eyebrow. “All right, I had one or two more than was good for me, but I remember everything, Jemma. You should have seen him—hope Uncle Robert did; maybe he’ll stay off my back now.”

Jemma shot him a _shut up_ glare and turned emphatically to Miss Potts. “Is your headache better?”

“ _Mine_ is, thank you. I took a walk this morning and it cleared right up.”

Her emphasis was not lost on Jemma. Both Roger and Mrs. Weatherby were looking a little queasy, and Mr. Weatherby’s frown could mean anything. Only her mother, smiling benevolently at the end of the table furthest from the door, and Cousin Mary with her perpetually anxious eyes appeared as usual. “Has anyone else been down?” she asked.

Miss Potts shook her head. “At least, I don’t think so. I did run into Sir Robert on my walk. He showed me the tennis courts.”

She heard the door to the dining room swing open behind them. The housekeeper, Mrs. Pierce, went around to speak to Edith; Mr. Fitz, natty in a blue vest, headed directly for the buffet. Out of the corner of her eye, Jemma watched him load down his plate with rather more food than she thought anyone could eat. “Yes, he’s very proud of them. We haven’t gotten to use them much this year, unfortunately. Do you play?”

“Oh, a little,” Miss Potts said, smiling at Mr. Fitz as he took a seat across the table. “Not well. I’m up for a few sets, though. Do you play tennis, Mr. Fitz?”

He glanced up as if startled. Jemma wondered, fleetingly, if his eyes could possibly have been so blue last night. “Tennis? Oh, er, yeah, I’m not bad.”

“Perhaps we can have a set later, then. Doubles, if you want, Miss Simmons.”

“Mr. Fitz and I have plans for the morning, but after lunch, certainly.” She turned to him, flushing, suddenly aware that she had accepted on his behalf as well. “Is that all right, Mr. Fitz?”

He didn’t appear to have noticed, staring at the toast rack with the same concentrated glare she had observed last night. “Yeah, happy to.” Crunching hastily through a bit of bacon, he swallowed and leaned forward. “Miss Potts, did Stark Industries have anything to do with combating poison gasses during the War? I know America didn’t come in until later, but—”

Miss Potts was already shaking her head. “No. We’ve done respirators since then—mostly for the farmers in the Midwest—but during the War we were concentrating primarily on air power. The masks your people did were considered good enough.”

A storm gathered on Mr. Fitz’s face. Recalling the schematics in his notebook and the passion with which he had spoken about the waste of lives, Jemma deemed it best to move past quickly. “Oh, I wasn’t aware Mr. Stark was at all connected with that sort of thing. But of course that explains how he knows Mr. Macpherson.”

“They’ve just met, actually, but that is the connection, yes. Stark Industries has similar—” She stopped as Jemma’s mother came up behind them, drawing their attention with a confident _ahem_. “Can I help you with something, Mrs. Simmons?”

“Actually I’m afraid I have to bother Mr. Fitz.” Her smile, turned to him, grew a trifle more like a grimace. “The housekeeper is wondering, as Mr. Macpherson’s door is locked, should they take him a breakfast tray? There is one prepared, but they received no instructions.”

A house party _faux pas_ if there ever was one, and Mr. Fitz seemed to know it. Panic leapt into his eyes. “Oh, yes, sorry—he’s usually down for breakfast so I didn’t, er, didn’t think—”

“Yes to the tray, then?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “And please, it’s very important that it have tea instead of coffee.”

“Of course.” Edith met the housekeeper halfway back to her seat, conferring in hushed tones. Mrs. Pierce nodded twice and left, leaving the door open a crack behind her.

“Aunt Edith would have hated that,” Roger drawled, holding his head up in his hand. “Word could have got round that she was starving her guests.”

“It’s not like him,” Mr. Fitz said, shamefacedly taking his fourth piece of toast. “He’s awfully particular about breakfast.”

Miss Potts nodded, sympathetic. “When Mr. Stark”—Roger groaned–“is working he’ll often forget to eat all together. I’m not sure which is worse.”

Jemma sipped at her coffee.  “Goodness knows we can all be rather horrible without proper nutrition. There’s been some fascinating studies of late—though perhaps not at breakfast.”

“Thank you,” Mr. Fitz said, “I prefer not to think about digestion unless absolutely necessary. The whole thing’s beastly.”

“And yet your ads,” Miss Potts put in, “so many of them about what goes on inside. There aren’t half so many in the States. Why do you all worry about it so much?”

Her question was answered only by the scream that cut through the house like a scalpel.

Jemma shrieked in response, her cry joining several others around the table (including, she rather thought, Mr. Fitz). Cousin Mary went white as a sheet. David Weatherby leapt to his feet and placed a protective hand on his wife, who was so tense she looked as if the touch at her shoulder would send her springing. “What in God’s name was that?”

“I’m sure it’s nothing, Mr. Weatherby, but I’ll just go see.” Edith deliberately folded her napkin and made her way into the hall, as collected as if she were strolling up the aisle in church.

“I’ve never been so startled in all my life,” Mary Farquhar said after a minute, pressing a hand over her heart. “But it must be nothing, mustn’t it? What could happen?”

She didn’t receive a response. Fitz, heart pounding nearly out of his chest, peered through the sliver of open door to avoid the uneasy gazes of the rest of the guests. Nothing for a moment. Then the housekeeper, dark and grim, hurried up to Mrs. Simmons and began speaking in a very low tone. “What!” Mrs. Simmons exclaimed, then cast a backwards glance and lowered her voice to a murmur. Her whole body was tense, the unconcerned ease with which she had walked out of the room vanished as completely as if it had never been. The housekeeper nodded and disappeared from sight. Mrs. Simmons stood a moment longer, one hand to her cheek, before seeming to shake herself into action. Her face was impassive as she came to the door, eyes sweeping over Miss Potts and Miss Simmons before coming to a stop on him. He quailed, the cold feeling in the pit of his belly turning to fire. But when she spoke, only a slight quaver let on that something out of the ordinary had happened. “Mr. Fitz, I wonder, would you be so good as to find Sir Robert and ask him to come in? Jemma darling, perhaps you had better go along; you know all your father’s haunts.”

She stood quickly, eyes wide in her pale face, and led him through the hall and past the drawing room, along the paths they had walked last night and beyond. “What do you think it is?” he asked as he hurried behind her, unable to match her pace by simply walking.

She shook her head, sending her hair swinging. “It must be something dreadful. I’ve never seen my mother allow herself to be so upset before guests.”

With the surety of a homing pigeon, she led the way to a small open space in the shrubbery, big enough for a small fountain and one woven chair. Sir Robert, who had been resting his eyes with his feet on the ledge of the basin, sat up like someone had snapped him into place. His glance darted back and forth between them. “Jemma? What’s wrong?”

She grabbed one wrist with her opposite hand. “I don’t know, sir. Mother asked you to come quickly—something’s happened.”

A keen light came into his eyes and Fitz remembered suddenly that Sir Robert had been a High Court Judge before his retirement. “Where?”

“In the hall,” Miss Simmons began as her father got to his feet and hurried up the garden path. She flitted along at his elbow, talking all the time, while Fitz finally gave up all dignity and loosened his tie as her ran along behind them. They reached the kitchen door in a bunch, nearly running into each other in their haste to get through. Fitz had a muddled impression of a clump of servants in the corner, huddled around a girl shaking uncontrollably. Had the scream unnerved them that much?

Mrs. Simmons met them in the hall, now collected apart from the decidedly grey tint to her face. Quickly detaching their daughter from Sir Robert’s elbow, she tugged him back from charging up the stairs. “Slowly, Robert. We mustn’t alarm our guests.”

Fitz cast a glance at Miss Simmons, whose grim mouth said it was far too late for that. From his matching expression, Sir Robert thought the same, but he obediently slowed down and took the steps one at a time. Miss Simmons raced ahead, heedless. “Who screamed?” he asked his wife.

“Maud, I’m afraid. Something—rather—unpleasant—”

Mrs. Simmons threw a glance back at Fitz, three steps below her on the staircase. He hesitated. Having served his purpose in fetching Sir Robert, he wasn’t needed anymore. He should probably go back to the dining room. But the quick look did not say “go away”, he didn’t think, so he listened to the ice cold feeling trickling down his spine and kept going.

Already at the landing, Miss Simmons paused and turned to her parents. “Which room?”

“Oh, darling, I don’t think—” Mrs. Simmons began, but broke off as her husband reached the top and headed down the left-hand hall. “The Peacock Suite, Robert,” she said, hurrying behind him with both Miss Simmons and Fitz hard at her heels. Fitz could hardly breathe from running, but he heaved a sigh of relief anyway. From the way she had looked at him, Fitz was sure—but he was in the Hummingbird Room, or something like that, so whatever it was, it couldn’t be _that_.

They came to a panting halt in front of the door to the corner room—Mr. Stark’s room, oh lord—where the very proper butler stood like a statue. “No one has come,” he said, addressing Sir Robert and Mrs. Simmons equally.

“Very good, Baines.” Sir Robert held out his hand for the key and unlocked the door, throwing it open with one swift motion. The room inside—a million times more lavish than the tiny closet he occupied—looked as ordinary as Fitz imagined guest suites to be: ornate fabrics; overstuffed chairs; expensive, useless bric-a-brac; giant windows that looked out over the back garden. There was nothing here to make all this fuss. Then he found himself blinking slowly, struggling to breathe, and he followed the others’ horrified gazes across the room. There, neatly tucked into bed with his eyes wide open and his mouth gaping open pathetically, was a dead man.

It took Fitz another endless second to realize that the tomato-red face belonged to his uncle.

He didn’t really remember what happened after that; it took all his effort not to give in to the deep blackness that seemed to spread over his vision. His knees wobbled beneath him and he would likely have fallen if not for the strength of Miss Simmons’s grip on his arm as she pushed towards the door. Her voice, high and urgent, sounded like it was coming from underwater.

“Dad, for God’s sake, close the door! Can’t you see he’s been gassed?”


	6. Inspector Ross

All things considered, the Simmons family acquitted themselves well in the immediate aftermath of Macpherson’s death. At Jemma’s pronouncement, Sir Robert swung the door to with a quick jerk and stripped off his tweed jacket, rolling it tightly to stuff into the crack under the door. Baines was dispatched to call the police; Mrs. Simmons calmly gathered up a startled Dot and Stark when they appeared in the hallway and shepherded them to the drawing room, dressing gowns and all; Miss Simmons, once she was sure that Mr. Fitz could make it down the stairs without fainting, pulled her sweater over her nose and helped her father open as many windows as possible. Thus, by the time Inspector Ross arrived with two constables and the police surgeon in tow, all the guests—suspects—were gathered in the drawing room with clean, fresh air flowing through, somewhat uneasy but more annoyed than panicked. The inspector surveyed them with a genial eye, the better to put them at ease. When dealing with high society people it was best to make them think you were on their side, Ross thought—information gleaned from his avid readings of London inquests. “We will make this as painless as possible, ladies and gentlemen. Please be patient while we wait for the room to clear out.”

“Do you think it was murder, Inspector?”

He turned a reassuring smile on the small, cringing person who asked the question. “Of course we can’t say at present, Miss Farquhar, but I shouldn’t worry if I were you. An accident is just as likely.”

Someone in the corner gave a half-hearted scoff. Ross elected to ignore it, following the butler across the hall to the dining room, where he would set up shop until they got this whole thing sorted. He was glad to find that the dining chairs were the substantial, old-fashioned kind; there was nothing worse than sitting in those modern plastic pieces that often started as a seat and ended in a heap on the floor. That severely undercut a man’s authority. Settling in at the head of the table, he nodded at the police surgeon, Dr. Nobby, who was biding his time until he could get at the body. “If it’s really gas there won’t be a lot for you to do, will there?”

Nobby peered through his thick glasses, eyes bright behind. “One never knows. It’s not an exact science.”

Ross didn’t know what that meant—science was nothing if not exact, wasn’t that what they always said?—and he didn’t know where to go with conversation from there. “Quite, but there’s no use speculating now, is there? It’ll come soon enough.” Stroking his generous moustache thoughtfully, he considered that a smooth transition. “Better start with the girl who found the body, eh? Who is it, Tompkins?”

His sergeant, newly promoted and very aware of it, tripped as he brought the list over. “Maud Wilson, sir.”

“Ah, yes.  Good girl, Maudie. Show her in.”

Maud came in, sniffling, twisting a soggy handkerchief between her hands. Inspector Ross, who had known her since she had her baby teeth, gave her a dry one and asked after her Mother, Father, Brother John, Brother Ned, Sister Anne, and Sister Euphemia before broaching the unpleasant subject. Despite his careful work, she burst into tears again. “Ooh, it was _awful_ , sir, to see him lying there all red with his eyes staring.”

Ross waited for the sobs to subside and tried again. “There now, be very brave. There’s a good girl. All I want you to tell me is what happened _before_ you saw him. Can you do that?”

“I’ll _try_.” She hiccupped, sighed, and managed to stem the tide. “Mrs. Pierce said she needed my help with the breakfast trays. Mine was for the Peacock.”

“Good, good. What happened next?”

“The door was locked on the inside. Mrs. Pierce knocked and opened it with her key.”

“Was she with you when you—er—noticed the bed?”

Happily, Maud didn’t seem to associate the bed with the dead man in it. “No sir. I went in and put the tray on the table, then I saw the bathroom door was open and I went across to close it. Mrs. Simmons is very particular about that, sir.”

“Very right, too.”

“That was when I looked around and saw—him.” She gulped, but managed to keep the tears back.

“What did you do then?”

“Screamed, sir.”

“And then what?”

“Mrs. Pierce came and pulled me out and locked the door. Then I went downstairs and had to sit down and sniff some ammonia.”

“Thank you, Maud, that’s very clear. Can you answer just one more question?”

She nodded bleakly.

“Was there anything funny in the room?”

“Yes, the red man all puffy and—”

“No, no,” Ross jumped in quickly, “apart from him. Anything you noticed.”

She thought as she wiped her eyes. “It was very warm, sir. And there seemed to be an awful lot of bags for one man. That’s all.”

“All right, thank you, Maudie. You can go back to your work now.”

When the door was shut behind her, Ross looked to Tompkins. “What was the important thing in that story?”

Tompkins flipped back through his notes. “That the door was locked, sir?”

“Exactly. That points to an accident, doesn’t it? Of course we won’t know until we get in, but it’s a working theory.”

“Just another few minutes, sir. They’ve got the gas off and are airing it out right now.”

Ross shook his head somberly. “Pity to destroy the scene like that, but we couldn’t go in there with that much gas.” He cleared his throat and glanced down at the sheet of paper in front of him. “Better see the secretary now.”

The secretary, a young man in a sweater vest who looked mainly as if he had eaten something disagreeable, collapsed into the offered chair. “Leo Fitz,” he said in response to Ross’s question.

“And what is your relationship to the deceased?”

“Nephew.” He scrubbed his hands over his face, missing Ross’s hastily disguised surprise. “Oh, secretary. I suppose you wanted ‘secretary’.”

“We want the truth, whatever it is,” Ross said impressively. “You have identified the body?”

“Yes, as much as possible from ten feet away.”

“We’ll confirm that as soon as the room is clear. What we want in the meantime, Mr. Fitz, is anything you can tell us about your uncle’s general mindset. Was business good? Had he been ill lately? Things like that.”

He cocked his head to one side, eyes deep. “You’re wondering if he would have killed himself?”

Again, Ross was surprised. “We have to consider all possibilities.”

Mr. Fitz put his head in his hands and thought a moment. “No,” he said finally, “there’s nothing like that. And he wasn’t the sort to kill himself anyway.”

“You’re sure.”

“I don’t think,” Mr. Fitz said, smirking painfully, “he would feel anything deeply enough to deprive the world of his genius.”

Ross raised an eyebrow at Tompkins, who obediently made a note of the twisted bitterness in the secretary’s grin. “So you were surprised, then.”

“Well, apart from the fact that no one expects to see one’s relative dead before breakfast—”

There was a quick rap at the door. The constable, whose name Ross didn’t remember, popped his head in respectfully. “The room is clear, sir, whenever you’re ready to come up.”

“Excellent.” Ross pushed the heavy chair back from the table and stood. “We’ll go up now, I think. No need to keep them waiting.”

The room, which made up nearly half of the backside of the building, still smelt slightly warm when they entered. Tompkins made sure to stand close to one of the large windows that looked out over the back garden, currently flung wide open to let the poisonous air out. The sun, now overhead, didn’t provide enough light for Ross’s taste, so the constable was made to train his torch directly at the dead man’s face. In the artificial glow, it looked like a particularly nasty Guy.

“That’s him,” Mr. Fitz confirmed, backing away as soon as possible.

Ross didn’t bother paying attention to him after that. “Seems a clear case,” he said, stroking the velvety covers. This was some nice stuff; perhaps Mrs. Ross would like a coverlet like this.

Nobby, blinking owlishly, agreed. “Of course we can’t say for sure until after the autopsy, but you don’t see that colour red in many circumstances other than gas poisoning.”

“That’s rather what I thought.” Ross turned towards the other policemen, determined to make the most of this opportunity. “Gentlemen, before Dr. Nobby tells us his estimated time of death, I’d like you to give a guess. Look at the scene and utilize the clues.”

The constable nearly dropped the torch. Tompkins, trying valiantly to live up to his title, inched closer to the bed and poked at the corpse’s elbow with one finger. “He’s very stiff, sir. He must have died more than twelve hours ago. That would place the death around”—he checked his watch—“eleven p.m.”

“But…”

Tompkins looked a trifle panicked. “But what, sir?”

“Think about how he was found. There’s another factor.”

Both officers avoided his eyes, shuffling from one foot to the other. Ross was about to ask the doctor to elaborate when the answer came from behind him.

“The radiator was on.”

“Precisely,” the inspector said, casting a sharp look over his shoulder to see Mr. Fitz carefully running his hands over the radiator pipes where they came out of the floor. “Heat accelerates the process, so it needn’t have been as long as twelve hours. If we suspected foul play, we’d want to work out alibis very carefully, but as the door was locked we don’t have to worry too much about it. Dr. Nobby will provide us with more specific information and a better estimate after he does the autopsy. What else?”

Once the officers had, with painstaking precision, determined there was indeed a great many bags in the room but nothing to indicate anything other than an accident, Ross led the way into the en-suite bathroom for a closer look at the cause of death. As the room took up the whole back corner of the house, he expected there to be plenty of space for the three of them together, even with a tub and commode. “Now here,” he said, “you can guess what you’re going to see, but it’s important to keep an open mind. The difference between an accident and a clever murder is often the smallest of—” He stopped short, aghast at the picture before him. “Mr. Fitz! What do you think you’re doing?”

The young man stood from his position in front of the boiler cabinet, pushing his hair off his face with a forearm since his hands were black and grimy. A streak of grey dust across his cheek did not detract from his grave, still sick expression. “I’m an engineer, sir, I only wanted to see what went wrong.”

Ross pulled himself up to his full height and boomed, shoving past the young idiot to block his view. Mr. Fitz withdrew only slightly, pushing Tompkins and the constable towards the door on the opposite side of the room. “You’ve put your fingerprints all over the evidence and mucked about with any clues that might be there. If this was a murder, you’d be in serious trouble, Mr. Fitz.”

“I’m going to be in trouble, then.”

“This isn’t murder. It’s an accident.”

Mr. Fitz opened his mouth and shut it again, one hand going up to the back of his neck before he, apparently, remembered how dirty they were. Instead he plunged into a pocket and brought out a tiny torch just the length of his finger. “What do you know about boilers, sir?”

“Nothing.”

“If I could show you, then?” He flicked on the torch and crouched in front of the boiler cabinet, leaving Ross to follow less gracefully. “The gas comes through the pipes, here, and heats up the water in the tank, here.” As he explained, he trained the light on the various parts. “It’s not quite an open flame, but it does require oxygen to burn, so the by-products of the fire are released into the air as well. The most important thing is making sure there’s a source of fresh air to allow the carbon monoxide—that’s the poisonous part, sir—to escape. Whoever put in this boiler added a ventilation shaft to the outside as a safeguard.”

Ross stuck his head carefully in and peered at the outside wall. “I don’t see anything.”

“That’s just it, sir.” The torch, brighter than its size would suggest, shot a beam towards the ceiling. Halfway up the wall, the metal slats of the shaft were completely plugged with wads of dun-coloured cloth.

“Good God!” Ross exclaimed in spite of himself.

“Yes,” Mr. Fitz agreed, rocking back on his heels to give Ross more room. “I didn’t touch that, but it looks fairly wedged in. And if it is—”

“Yes, I see.” The inspector stilled, fingers playing at his upper lip. The other policemen, recognizing that expression, were silent. Mr. Fitz turned off his torch and stood, waiting. “Right,” Ross said finally, reluctantly. “Tompkins, ring the station and have them send round a photographer and a fingerprint man. This is now a potential murder investigation.”

Mr. Fitz swallowed hard, greener than before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please forgive a chapter that's nearly entirely OCs; I promise the FitzSimmons-y goodness will return in full force on Monday.


	7. Fitz/Simmons

They returned to the dining room grimly, the two policemen marching on either side of Fitz as if he was already in custody and the inspector leading the way like it was a bloody parade. He walked between them in a daze. The whole morning was taking on a slightly surreal quality, twisted and melted like a Dali painting with nothing but the red, red face of his dead uncle and Miss Simmons’s grip on his arm tethering him to reality. Even the facts had betrayed him. Just when he thought he could make sense of the situation by figuring out what had gone wrong, a new variable had entered the equation and blown it all to pieces. An accident would have been dreadful but understandable; this murder—the idea that someone could actually want to kill George Macpherson—was beyond comprehension. And now he was being frog-marched in for questioning, according to all the rules of public opinion and detective fiction Suspect Number One. If he had just kept quiet—but no, he couldn’t have done that; Uncle George was a blister and a wart but he didn’t deserve to be killed. But how? But who? The dirt from the boiler still covered his face and was slowly creeping around the back of his neck as he rubbed it, trying to massage in understanding.

Ross gestured to a seat in the middle of the oval table and nodded at the sergeant. “So now, knowing what we do, are you holding to your earlier statement?”

“About what, exactly?”

“Tompkins, read Mr. Fitz’s earlier statement.”

The sergeant obediently flipped back in his notebook and found the place as Ross settled into the chair across the table. “You’re wondering if he would have killed himself no there’s nothing like that and he wasn’t that sort anyway I don’t think he would—”

“I still don’t think he would do it himself, if that’s what you mean.”

“It would be easier,” Ross suggested, tenting his hands in front of him.

But lies. Ross was offering the suggestion like a sweet, but he couldn’t take it, not even to save his own skin. “No. I don’t know who would have wanted to kill him, but he didn’t do it himself.”

“Did your uncle have any enemies?”

“Of course, many. You aren’t as successful as he was without making enemies all along the way.”

“Any that would like to kill him?”

It boggled the imagination, but he considered. A year in the office hadn’t done much for him professionally, but it had granted a decent amount of insight. “Probably one or two. But they aren’t here. It’s not as if they could have sneaked in during the night.”

“Why not?”

“He locked the door, didn’t he? And he was a light sleeper; I think he would have woken if there had been someone in the room.”

Ross’s eyebrow flickered. “It certainly does appear as though he had an enemy here.”

“If so, it’s either a very new one or very old. There isn’t anyone here I recognise.”

The next question came so smoothly, he almost missed the loaded subtext. “Were you and your uncle close?”

“No.”

“Didn’t go fishing with him as a little chap or anything?”

Fitz clenched his fists in his lap and ground out the answer through his teeth. “I grew up in Glasgow, working after school running errands for a garage. The only fish I ever saw as a ‘little chap’ were pickled.”

“But you’re an engineer, you said. How does a boy go from running the streets to your position?”

Blood and tears, Fitz thought, remembering the blotchy pucker-marks on draft after draft of the letter, drops rolling down his mother’s face and off her chin as she wrote. Even as a boy, he hadn’t believed it was worth it. “My mam wrote and asked if he would consider paying for a good school, said I was too smart for the path I had in front of me…he agreed, but only if I came to work for him after. I never saw him until I came down.”

Ross appeared unmoved, leaning back in his seat. “All those positions for engineers, and he can only find you one as his personal secretary?”

“Yes,” he said, staring at the table. “It wasn’t what we had hoped for.” Not that he would ever tell Mam that—she had made too many sacrifices for him to be anything but grateful.

“Do you like it?”

He looked up sharply, eyes blazing. Here it came. “I didn’t dislike it enough to kill him, if that’s what you’re suggesting. There could have been other ways out.”

“Of course.” Ross was trying to be soothing, but Fitz wasn’t fooled. “Merely asking. A man’s secretary generally has the measure of him, that’s all, and if he’s happy with his work it says good things about the man.”

Fitz scowled, letting that be his answer.

“No one is accusing you at present.”

Ross let the _at present_ hang in the air ominously. Fitz squirmed underneath it, feeling the numbness prickle back to life. “Look, it’s ridiculous! Even if I had tried to kill him I wouldn’t have succeeded.”

“That was a fairly foolproof method.”

How did people without even a grasp of basic science get into these positions? “Actually, if the window had been open there’s a good chance _no_ one would have died. But it’s not that. If I had wanted to kill my uncle I would have gone to _his_ bedroom, not that one. I don’t know what he was doing in there. That was supposed to be Mr. Stark’s room.”

Ross stilled; the sergeant’s scribbling pencil went silent. “Pardon me?”

Fitz spoke slowly, defiantly. “We we arrived, Mr. Stark was given the big room at the back of the house and Macpherson was in the one next to mine, Hummingbird or something like that. You can ask Mrs. Simmons or Miss Potts; they’ll bear me out.”

“So you’re saying,” Ross repeated, “that Macpherson and Stark, at some point last night, switched rooms.”

“Yes.” Then a light dawned, building in intensity until he wondered what kind of idiot he had been not to realise it before. Of course, that made a thousand times more sense! “Hold up—that means—well, it _could_ mean—”

Ross cut him off with a quick hand gesture. “Tut, now, there’s no use speculating. What we need is facts. With that in mind, we’ll need you to go through your movements last night, and anything else significant you can remember.”

Pushing back from the table and jumping to his feet, Fitz threw both hands in the air. “But if what we’re thinking is right, you ought to be questioning—”

“Sit down, Mr. Fitz. No one’s thinking anything at present.” He shifted in his seat, going from ‘large boulder’ to ‘Rock of Gibraltar’.  There was no moving that stone-faced plinth. Reluctantly, Fitz dropped into the chair and ran a hand through his hair. Ross nodded, pleased. “Now. When did you find out you were coming to Verinder Hall?”

 

* * *

 

Murder.

The word fell on the room like a bomb, the impact forcing the occupants of the drawing room to their feet, pushing them away from each other like it was catching. Jemma felt her hands and feet go suddenly cold. Cousin Mary started crying. Her mother closed her eyes, her lone concession to weakness, while her father’s face took on the sober look many a now-dead criminal would have recognised instantly. Tony Stark spoke for all of them.

“I’ll be damned.”

Somebody, Jemma thought wildly, already was.

The stolid constable looked as if he regretted telling them, but what’s done was done. “Yes,” he said, addressing himself to Dot. “So, I’m not to let anyone out of the room.” And then he stared straight over their heads and refused to answer any more questions, leaving them all to their own frantic speculation. Standing by one of the French windows, Jemma turned her back to the room and thought hard, a thrill running up her spine. Right now, somewhere behind her, someone was destined for the gallows. It was terrifying. It was also slightly unreal. Her mother, her father, self-important David Weatherby, his silly wife, Mr. Stark, sensible Miss Potts, tart Dot, weeping Cousin Mary—she simply couldn’t believe that any of them would have a reason to kill pompous, harmless Macpherson, much less actually do so. It would be like killing Roger—an inoffensive juggins, not worth risking one’s own life for. Distractedly, she noticed Mr. Nobby, who was on the lawn overseeing the removal of the corpse, wave at her. She raised a hand in automatic response, then narrowed her eyes to see better.

Heaving a heavy sigh and slumping in her chair, Mrs. Weatherby petulantly echoed Jemma’s thoughts. “It’s too ridiculous. Why should any of us kill him? Had anyone even met him before?”

“I did,” said Mr. Stark.

“Not you, of course. If you ask me there’s only one likely person—and the police already have him.”

Jemma snapped to attention, forgetting the sheet-covered stretcher now bobbing towards the front path. Mr. Fitz? They thought it was Mr. Fitz?

“Sonia,” Mr. Weatherby said sternly.

“No, she’s right.” Dot jabbed out her cigarette and lit another with shaking hands. “He must have; no one else would want to.”

Someone—Miss Potts, she rather thought—made a disagreeing noise, but was drowned out by the hiss of several murmured _yes_ es.

“Pity, what?” Roger said carelessly, strolling over to the bar between the windows to pour himself a whisky. “Though he can’t have been as clever as Jemma seemed to think, killing him in Uncle Robert’s house.”

“He didn’t, though!”

Even Jemma was surprised by the strength of her outburst. The rest of the room turned to her with a collective eyebrow raise. Roger’s smirk over the rim of his glass made her flush, but she balled her fists in her skirt and continued calmly. “I know he’s innocent.”

Mrs. Weatherby lifted a careless wrist. “Oh, until proven guilty, of course. Do you have that over here?”

Both Jemma and her mother glanced sharply at Sir Robert, but he had put a hand over his eyes and appeared not to have heard the slight against the English justice system. “Not just that. I know he’s innocent because we were together all last night.”

Dot sent a significant look towards Sonia. “Oh, _were_ you, darling?”

Catching her mother’s horrified expression, Jemma wrapped her hands around her neck and stammered, “No, of course not—Mother, don’t look like that! It was only til one or so, in the lab—”

“Glad you’ve finally found a use for it,” Roger murmured, quietly enough that only she and Stark could hear him. The American snorted into his drink. Scalding words appeared on her tongue, but it wasn’t just Roger; everyone in the room was jumping to the wrong conclusions, she could see it on their faces. Cousin Mary wouldn’t meet her eyes, her latent mid-Victorianism affronted by the implication. She had to say something or they were going to think— Turning to her father, she stretched out a hand in appeal. “It was only science. But Mr. Macpherson has been dead for hours, you can see it by the rigor—”

“Do they teach that in schools, too?” Stark asked, heavily lidded eyes inscrutable. “Bless me, what will they think of next?”

“Darling, don’t be silly.” Edith spoke firmly, sailing in to mitigate the damage Jemma was blundering all through. “You don’t know enough about these things to say. Best leave it to the police.”

Jemma did know enough—no sheet could hide that the joints on that corpse had not been pliable—but she ignored the molten lump of anger in her stomach and subsided, glad to be forgotten for a minute. She had made a proper mess of that. But there was no need for everyone to be so hateful.

After an awkward silence, David Weatherby cleared his throat impressively. “Officer, I don’t suppose you know when they’ll let us leave? This…unfortunate circumstance rather necessitates that I’m available to the papers…one must reassure one’s constituents, after all.”

Still turned to the window, Jemma was glad no one could see the disgust spreading across her face. How abso-bally-lutely unbelievable! A man was dead upstairs and he was worried about his political career? What did it matter what the papers said?

The officer shook his head. “You’d have to talk to the Inspector, sir. He’ll want to be sure you’re clear of suspicion.”

“But it’s too ridiculous!” Dot burst out, leaping to her feet, “we’ve already told you who did it!”

The hot ball of anger burst like Vesuvius, and Jemma had a tense few seconds trying to keep her Fury-like shriek inside. She couldn’t stand it in this rotten room any longer. Shoving past Roger and Stark, brushing by the disapproving looks from the sofa, she made the least of her height and tried to look particularly fragile. “Pardon me, officer, may I be excused for one minute? I’ve got to…”

He opened the door for her immediately, politely avoiding her gaze. Stepping out into the hall, she waited until the door closed before allowing herself the pleasure of a rude word and a foot stomp, surprised to hear it echoed across the way.

Mr. Fitz sat on the stairs, shaking out one hand shamefacedly. “Sorry. My mother would kill me if she knew I said that around a lady, but you did say it first.”

Her anger drained out, dissipated in the face of a problem more serious than self-centered idiocy. Casting a glance back at the door, she took a hesitant step forward. “It seemed justified.”

He tried to smile—to say thank you, she thought—but it was just a flash before worry took over again. It was understandable, of course. He was clever enough to know what was being said behind the drawing room door. Behind both doors, actually; he must have just come out of being questioned  and would know that the inspector would be poking and prodding at every word he had said, trying to twist it into some damning evidence. Being innocent wouldn’t make the suspicion any easier to bear. In his place, she would lock herself in her room and cry a flood; she would call her father from the ends of the earth and lean on his stern strength until everything came right again. But Mr. Fitz was alone. No wonder he was staring at the carpet between his feet, dark caverns sprung up overnight underneath his haunted eyes. Jemma found herself moving towards him, hands fluttering in front of her. She managed to catch one wrist in her other hand, but couldn’t keep the tremor out of her voice. “Mr. Fitz?”

He looked up bleakly.

“I only wanted to tell you that I know you didn’t do it. And that, er, I’ll fight for you as long as necessary.” Lord, that sounded idiotic. She bit her lip, hoping she wasn’t as flushed as she felt. It didn’t matter, though, because he hardly met her eyes before ducking his head back down with a mumble. She stepped a bit closer. “What was that?”

“But then,” he said, still not looking up, “we’ll have to tell them about—about last night, and that won’t be pleasant for you. The, um…it looks a bit—”

He waved a hand in the air and she felt her blush creeping from the back of her neck to her ears. Remembering her family’s presumptive, horrified looks, she knew exactly what he was too polite to say. It did look rather like she had…they had…she stopped, unable to finish the sentence even to herself, and went on briskly. It would be embarrassing, but probably not unalterably damaging to her reputation. Anyway, surely he wouldn’t be worried about _that_ , not at a time like this. “You mean you didn’t tell them?”

He shook his head, glancing up at her shyly through his eyelashes.

Of all the sweet, idiotic things to do. “Mr. Fitz, you _must_ , it’s your alibi.  Otherwise you’ll be in heaps of trouble completely unnecessarily. I don’t mind, not really.”

“I’ll be in trouble anyway, I think. There’s no need to drag you down with me.”

“Oh no!” The force of her denial propelled her within a foot of where he sat. “The police aren’t stupid. I know the surgeon myself, we’re old friends. I’ll tell them. I’ve already told everybody else.” Alarm leapt into his eyes, but she barreled on. “The police will know soon enough, and you’ll be cleared in no time.”

 He didn’t look as if he believed her, and she was about to marshal her forces for a spirited defense when the dining room door opened and a soft cough drew her attention away.

“Miss Simmons? The inspector would like to see you.”


	8. Simmons/Fitz

Sitting in the chair across from Ross, Jemma tried to quiet her fluttering nerves and offered what was meant to be a disarming smile. “You see there’s no need to suspect Mr. Fitz, Inspector. I can provide an alibi for him. After we left the drawing room we were out in my lab from almost ten to just after one, and we went upstairs together after that.” Replaying her words, she cursed herself inwardly and stammered, “not _together_ , that is. I meant _at the same time_.”

The inspector was unmoved. “From ten p.m. to one a.m., you can swear absolutely as to his movements?” he pressed.

Her smile slipped, came back more brittle. “Yes, sir.”

“How do you know it was one when you came in, Miss Simmons?”

She frowned, pursing her lips in what she knew was a startling imitation of her mother. “He looked at his watch just before we left the lab. But the clock in my room said ten past when I got in, and it’s always kept very good time.”

Ross leaned back in his chair. “Well, that’s very clear then. I wonder why he wouldn’t just tell us that? He kept insisting he couldn’t say, that there was more at stake than his skin.”

She opened her eyes very wide, hoping she looked as innocent as she was. “That’s very kind, I’m sure, but completely ridiculous. There’s no reason to keep it a secret.”

“One o’clock in the morning,” Ross mused. “That seems awfully late for a nice girl like you to be out unaccompanied with a young man. Though I suppose you know Mr. Fitz well?”

“Yes, of course.” She answered before she thought, then flushed. It had been— _could_ it have been?—only fourteen hours since she had sat across from him on the sofa with no idea what to say; how was it possible that her response didn’t feel anything less than reasonable? “That is, I feel as though I know him well, but we only met yesterday.” The inspector’s face didn’t move, but she could feel his disbelief. Speaking faster, she looked between him and the scribbling sergeant. “It’s science, you understand. People in the same discipline can strike up instant rapport. I’m sure you experience the same thing in police work.”

“Oh yes, miss, when us inspectors get together we could talk the ear off a statue swapping stories. I didn’t realize you are a scientist.”

She thought she detected a hint of mockery in his tone. Raising her chin a little, she nodded affirmation. “Yes. I’m an organic chemist.”

“But Mr. Fitz is an engineer, I think. What did you find to talk about?”

“Oh—” She stopped to think, trying to recall phrases and topics out of that breathless verbal dance and coming up with only the blue of his eyes and the shape of his hands and the sound of her own laughter. “We began with the bodies as machines, I think…that led to da Vinci…at some point we started talking about Madame Curie and the problems of working with toxic materials.” The conversation snapped into focus. “Oh, yes, that was it! We were talking about how what’s really needed is some sort of suit that completely protects one from toxic materials. I think we could do it chemically, but Mr. Fitz believes it would be a combination of respirators and—”

“Did you talk about his uncle at all?”

She stopped short, as if she had been pinched. “Oh, well! Not to—that is, only briefly. Not enough to mention.”

Ross’s eyes were intentionally inscrutable. “Did he say anything to lead you to believe they were not on good terms?”

“Of course not!” It sounded like a lie even to her own ears; Ross appeared even less convinced. While technically true—he only said that he disliked his job, not his uncle—she shifted guiltily, aware that it looked suspicious. Just tell the truth, Jemma, truth the one solid rock in unsteady times. “Not in so many words. He only said that he disagreed with him in some business matters. But, Inspector, I’d swear that he was surprised when we opened the door; he nearly fainted. He’s out there now in shock. And if he had killed his uncle, why would he have pointed it out in the first place?”

The sergeant paused in his note-taking to make a _hmm_ noise in the back of his throat. His superiour shot him a warning glance, which Jemma saw and chalked up as a point to her. Demurely looking up through her eyelashes, she veiled her gloating. “Was there anything else, inspector?”

Obviously unwilling to admit when he’d been out-reasoned, Ross kept her in the room another fifteen minutes, going over her movements and whatever she could remember of everyone else’s for both last night and this morning. She answered briefly, mind prodding at each question to see what the underlying assumptions might be. Ross was a good officer, she knew; her father thought highly of his work. But from what Jemma could tell there was a distinct lack of imagination. The inquiry seemed to have got stuck on Mr. Fitz and, that possibility impossible, couldn’t find another path to tread. Like her earlier assessment, the idea that any of the people still in the drawing room would kill Mr. Macpherson seemed unbelievable to Inspector Ross. But he would see it in time, of course. The truth was there, someplace, unlikely as whatever it was might seem.

Finally, he nodded at the constable to stop. “That’s all, I think, Miss Simmons. But I must caution you against sharing what we’ve talked about here.”

“Yes, sir.” As that didn’t include her own speculations, she felt completely able to keep that promise.

“And we’ll just need to take your fingerprints—for reference, of course.”

“Certainly.” She had never had her fingerprints taken before and found the whole process rather fascinating, despite the inky residue it left all over her fingers. That done, she rose and shook Ross’s hand firmly, letting herself out into the hall. A brief glance at her watch showed half-past-noon. It was almost lunch-time; her mother would be furious at the delay.

“What did they say?”

She jumped for the second time, willing her heart to slow down. He hadn’t moved an inch since she left; if one didn’t know better, one would say he had been turned to stone. “I’m not allowed to say. But if you’ve read detective stories at all, you can probably guess what they asked.”

“The rotten alibi.” He pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers with a grimace. “I’m sorry you had to tell them. I never would have—”

“Mr. Fitz! I know. Please don’t worry about it.” She tried to smile reassuringly. “My reputation is nearly impenetrable.”

He nodded, eyes hard. “Of course they’ll try to break it—I suppose you’re a trustworthy witness, at least?”

“Well, the Inspector did mention that it seemed a long time to spend alone with a man, but they’ve no reason to suspect any untoward activities include murder.” Oh, lord, this was why she rarely made jokes. Fortunately, Mr. Fitz didn’t seem to notice the unsavoury insinuation, jabbing at the carpet with the point of a pencil. Her mother would have a fit, but Jemma was inclined to leave him be. In fact, he rather looked like he would prefer everyone to leave him be, though that seemed unlikely to happen if he persisted in sitting on the stairs in the literal middle of everyone. Putting one hand in her pocket, she began hesitantly, “Mr. Fitz?”

The door behind her opened, and they both turned sharply to see Tompkins exiting the dining room. “Pardon me, miss,” he said with a duck of his head, and made the long walk across the hall to the drawing room.  In silent agreement, neither Jemma nor Mr. Fitz said anything until he returned with Mrs. Simmons and the near door clicked shut behind him. Fully aware of her mother’s above-average hearing, Jemma moved away from the room and came to lean against the banister, lowering her voice to a more private tone. “Mr. Fitz, I’ve got the key to the Icehouse. If you’d like to be alone—”

“No.”

She stopped, surprised at his vehemence. “Sorry, I only thought—”

“Alone,” he said, still staring at the carpet, “alone means I never stop picturing his dead face. At least here I can be distracted by imagining myself in the dock. If you’d rather not be seen with a future gaol-bird, I suggest you leave now.”

She came a step closer, drawn rather than repulsed by the bitterness. Huddled on the stairs, he reminded Jemma of a dog with a thorn in its paw, snapping at everyone because he couldn’t make the problem go away. She had always been good at getting out thorns. “I told you before it wouldn’t come to that.”

“Thank you for the vote of confidence, but I can’t see another outcome.”

“ _Did_ you kill him?”

His head shot up, eyes burning. “Of course not.”

“Then there has to be another outcome: the right one.” Dropping onto the stair next to him with a poof of skirts, she rested her fingers very lightly on his sleeve. “The police aren’t stupid, Mr. Fitz; they’ll find the criminal in time.”

Fitz looked down at her hand, a little surprised at the electric shock quivering up his arm. That was an odd, unfamiliar feeling. Not unpleasant, but new. Particularly how the buzz lingered even after she removed the source.

“Anyway,” she said, settling with her back against the banister and the toes of her shoes lined up perfectly on the step below, “once they get the results of the autopsy, they’ll know you couldn’t have done it. If he had died any time after half-past midnight or so they wouldn’t have carried him out in a heap like that. I suppose they’ll have to wait for the stomach contents to be sure, but—”

Fitz could almost feel the blood draining from his head. “Stop. For the love of all things holy, stop.”

Her hands flew to her neck, a poor attempt to hide the red creeping into her face. “Oh, I’m sorry! I forgot he was your uncle. I would have never mentioned cutting him up—” She broke off and lunged toward him, placing a firm hand on the back of his head. Her next words came in and out through the ringing in his ears. “Put your head between your knees, Mr. Fitz, it will help the swimmy-headedness.”

He did as directed, immediately feeling the blood beginning to pool. Whether that was from the position or the embarrassment at nearly fainting again, he couldn’t say. After taking a few deep breaths, he felt sufficiently recovered to demand, albeit in an extremely pathetic tone, that she never mention autopsies again.

She agreed, apologising prettily. “It was horrid of me. I expect you’d rather not talk about it at all.”

As though not talking about it would keep him from turning the facts over and over in his head, trying to make sense of them, trying to see the way forward. Because whatever happened next he, Fitz, was going to be saddled with a great deal of responsibility. Unless he was arrested, which he did not allow himself to consider the lesser of two evils. As the most convenient next-of-kin—oh, damn, he would have to phone his mother and soon—there would be the funeral and house to sort; Macpherson Industries, praise the Almighty, would not ultimately be his to handle but whomever the Board sent in would no doubt rely on him to affect a smooth transition. The whole thing was damnably daunting, and he hadn’t the slightest idea how to begin. So yes, he would much rather not talk about it. Not even think about it, if it came to that. But it simply wasn’t practicable. He sat up slowly, missing the pressure of her hand in his hair. Somehow, it had seemed to help him think. “What I would like,” he said, managing not to sigh, “would be for someone to give me a list of protocols I could tick off when accomplished, but I doubt there is such a thing for When Your Uncle the Titan of Industry is Found Dead in Bed.”

She cocked her head to the side like a bird, toying with the fingers of her left hand. “Perhaps your solicitor has one. At least, the firm must have some sort of emergency directions, mustn’t it?”

“Mr. Biggs, of course!” It was a sign of his distraction that he hadn’t even thought of the obvious person to help, their ferret-faced lawyer who had been Fitz’s avuncular liaison with Macpherson from his scrawny errand-boy days. Deep in his uncle’s counsel and utterly reliable, Mr. Biggs would no doubt know exactly what to do. Just the thought of him removed fully half the burden. Fitz started up, checking his watch. “Have you got a phone? We’ll reimburse you for the trunk call.”

“Yes, in the study. But I wouldn’t phone now if I were you, not with everyone still in there. Much better to wait until lunch.”

“Lunch?” He realized suddenly that his three pieces of toast were a thing of the last eon. “Will that be soon?”

“If I know my mother, she’s already convincing Inspector Ross to put off the rest of the interviews until everyone’s digesting.” She laughed ruefully, shaking her head as she clasped her arms around her knees. “Oh dear, I can’t seem to keep away from beastly subjects, can I?”

He put a hand to the back of his neck. “Better beastly than morbid.”

Unfurling, she leaned back onto her elbows and acknowledged his point with a brisk nod. “I suppose, but better pleasant than either.”

What was there left pleasant to think about? Only death and suspicions and anxiety for the foreseeable future. Pacing, he began a list of questions to ask Mr. Biggs, hopeful that when it actually came to it he would be able to manage more than a panicked “For God’s sake tell me what to do.”

“What’s your favourite tea cake?”

He stopped, startled. “What?”

She repeated the question. “I saw your tea this morning—I’m not certain it’s good for you to take all that sugar—but at tea, what do you like? I’m partial to jam roll, myself.”

“Plain biscuits,” he said, not sure why she was asking but willing to go along for a bit. “It’s what I had as a boy and I’m used to them.”

“In your opinion, what’s the greatest technological advance of the century?”

“The wireless.”

“Mine too,” she said, “but not perhaps the greatest scientific achievement. How do you vote?”

“I know better than to tell.”

“Clever boy. What was your degree?”

“Double First in Mechanical Engineering.”

Both eyebrows shot up, impressed, and he felt a trickle of pleased pride. “Very nice. Who’s the best person you know?”

“My mother.”

Her gaze grew warm, but she didn’t comment and for that he was grateful; talking about Mam would probably make him bawl at this point. “I know you play a bit of tennis and I assume you go to lectures when you can; what else do you do for fun?”

“Jazz,” he said, surprising himself.

She sat up again, eyes bright and voice high. “You like dancing then?”

“Dancing? I hate it.” Just the very thought of it made him break out in a sweat, embarrassed memories of the few parties he had attended rising up to taunt him. He never danced if he could help it. But then her face fell, almost imperceptibly, and he found himself scrambling to equivocate. “That is, I’ve never been very good at it. It’s a bit mortifying, really.”

“Just because you haven’t been very good at it doesn’t mean you _couldn’t_ be. Perhaps you haven’t had the right partner.” Before he could parse out what that meant, she had made a crinkled face and moved on. “I don’t like jazz, except for dancing—too little structure for my taste.”

“Perhaps you haven’t been listening to the right sort,” he offered, sinking back to the step beside her.

The light in her eyes danced like the sun on a lake. “That’s fair. So let’s make a pact: when this is done, we’ll go to a club and I will try to convince you to like dancing and you can try to convince me to like jazz. Agreed?”

Fitz stared at her outstretched hand, trying with difficulty to imagine a future that did not include gaol. How could he say what he might do if he didn’t have to worry about being charged with murder?

“Mr. Fitz?”

His gaze shifted from her hand to her face.

“You _will_ get out of this, I know it. We won’t let anything else happen.”

  _We,_ he thought,when did they become a “we”? What did she have to do with anything? It was his uncle, his motive, his problem. She couldn’t do more than she already had, putting herself at risk for all kinds of ill-natured gossip and filthy insinuations. As if she would do anything like that; as if she would even think of anything like that with a person like him. She was much better as far out of it as possible. He ought to tick her off and send her away. But as he looked at her sitting there, chin up defiantly and the fire of right in her gaze, God help him, he couldn’t do it. For some unknown reason she had decided to ally herself with him and, though he knew hardly anything about her, he knew instinctively that she was a person all Hell couldn’t stand against. If she said he would get out of it, he would. If she said nothing else would happen, he believed her unequivocally. He would be an utter, barking fool to push her away.

Taking her hand in his, he shook it once, twice, and lingered, feeling the calluses on her palm and the strength of her grip. She brought her other hand up from her lap and enveloped their clasp, rubbing her thumb over the back of his hand. “There. It’s settled then: dancing and jazz, as soon as this is all over. And isn’t that a pleasant thought?”

Not as pleasant as the softness of her skin and the way the smell of lavender drifted over him. But for now, Fitz thought it would do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The response to MBM this week has absolutely blown me out of the water; I can't hardly believe all the nice things you guys are saying both here and on Tumblr. I'm really grateful. So I'm very happy that it works out that the chapter for today may be my favorite chapter of the ones I've written so far. It's like a little gift to you, even though it kind of had to happen that way. Thank you!


	9. Lunch

As Miss Simmons had foretold, her mother shortly emerged from questioning with the announcement that lunch would be served in twenty minutes.

“Marvelous,” Miss Simmons said, unconcernedly meeting what Fitz interpreted as a disapproving look. “I’m sure that will make everyone much more amenable to reason.”

Mrs. Simmons’s eyes flicked over from her daughter, hardening into the gaze of a Gorgon. “One can only hope.”

It took a good deal to put Fitz off his feed—the residual effects of going to bed hungry too often—but even he could barely choke down his meal, too conscious of the suspicious glares jabbing at him from every side. Between him and Inspector Ross, placidly forking roast potatoes in the very seat the murdered man had occupied the night before, the other guests didn’t know where to look. Fitz himself looked steadily at his plate. Seemed safer that way. Fortunately Mr. Stark’s inane babble kept them from trying to make awkward small talk, or he never would have made it through the soup course without bolting. That he made it through the meat course was due solely to the sympathetic faces Miss Simmons kept sending him across the table—not sympathy for his predicament, which would have been equally unbearable, but rolled eyeballs and tiny, exasperated huffs at Stark’s blather. _Honestly_ , he could almost feel her thinking, _and this man is considered a genius?_ It wasn’t until the third shared snort that he realized their mutual amusement had not gone unnoticed by the gimlet eye of Mrs. Simmons. Choking a little on his last bite, he crumpled his napkin into a ball and shot to his feet. “Mrs. Simmons, if you’ll excuse me, Miss Simmons was kind enough to offer the use of your telephone?”

“Of course, Mr. Fitz, consider it yours.” The steel behind her smile made the words a lie, but he decided to take them at their surface meaning and nodded his thanks. “It’s in the study.”

Miss Simmons popped up. “I can show him.”

“Nonsense, darling, I’m sure Mr. Fitz knows how to use a phone. It’s just across the hall.”

“Thank you,” he said again, and beat a hasty retreat. They were all just waiting for him to leave, anyway, no doubt so they could fall on the inspector and tear him to shreds. All the more reason to talk to his solicitor right away; Mr. Biggs would be a sorely-needed ally. But not, he thought as he turned to shut the door and caught the warm, wrinkle-nosed promise Miss Simmons was sending him, his only one.

As soon as the door shut behind him, the whole room seemed to let out a sigh of relief. Jemma glared down into her pudding but held her tongue. Despite the facts—which she had clearly and unequivocally stated—the judgmental staring through the entire lunch made their continued erroneous beliefs obvious. Nothing she could say would change their minds; it would have to be up to the inspector to confirm the truth. Which, from the silence that now enveloped the room, it was now expected that he would do.

But he didn’t. He sat there, calmly eating his pudding as if it were his only job and completely ignoring the significant glances and _ahem_ s directed his way.  Jemma, the good daughter of a former judge, didn’t expect anything else. Of course he couldn’t say anything about an ongoing investigation. Not until he had more information. So they ate in silence, the soft _clink_ of spoons against china the only sound for several minutes.

“Miss Simmons.”

She looked up, surprised.

Miss Potts offered a tiny smile. “How is Mr. Fitz bearing up, do you think?”

Every eye in the room swung to Jemma. Vultures, they were, ready to pick his bones before he was even dead. Not Miss Potts, though; she fancied the concern warming the question was genuine. About bally time. Head held high, she ignored everyone else and answered directly. “Of course we’ve only just met, so I wouldn’t like to be too certain, but I should say he’s doing better than expected.”

“I’m glad,” the secretary said. “It must be horrible for him.”

Roger tapped the rim of his glass, eyeing the butler meaningfully until Baines moved to refill it. A little early in the day, Jemma thought, but then Roger never needed an excuse to imbibe at the best of times. “You know they say that murderers never mind it afterwards. Think of Crippen.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” her father put in, shooting Jemma a warning to keep quiet. “And I’m sure the inspector would agree.”

Ross chewed hastily and wiped his mouth. “Well, sir, it’s true that many of the ones that kill someone by mistake regret it afterwards. But this is my first case of premeditated murder. It’s hard to say what a man who plans to kill someone might feel about it.”

Jemma considered. That explained a good deal. If Ross had only ever handled cases in which the obvious answer _was_ the answer, no wonder he was so fixated on Mr. Fitz. He just needed a reason to look elsewhere, perhaps—not that she knew what that reason would be yet, but there had to be one. Deep in thought, she only half-listened to Mr. Stark when he spoke again.

“It couldn’t have been _very_ premeditated, though, am I right? Or are we back to thinking someone meant to kill me instead? Because I infinitely prefer the former. It’s not pleasant to think there’s still someone roaming around wanting to bump you off.”

“I rather think you ought to assume that anyway,” Roger muttered into his half-empty glass. Next to him, Miss Potts hid a smirk. Jemma, coming back to the room with a thump, spoke over Dot’s attempted admonishment. “Wait, what do you mean ‘back’? Why should anyone have meant to kill you?”

Stark turned to her, the very picture of astonishment. “Because Macpherson and I swapped rooms late last night. Were you not paying attention? I’m hurt.”

Not paying attention! When would she have heard that? It couldn’t have happened before they went out to the Icehouse; Jemma had a good peripheral memory and was quite sure her mother and Mr. Stark had only spoken about the card tables the entire time they were in the drawing room. Unless it had been while she and her father were in the hall. But that hadn’t been enough time, surely, and she would have seen Mrs. Pierce consulting with her mother or the housemaids…in which case, that cleared Mr. Fitz entirely, even if they doubted her testimony? Unless they could come up with a reason he would want to kill Mr. Stark…

Thinking furiously, she forgot to respond to Mr. Stark and left the conversation wide open for Dot to work her malicious magic. “No, Tony, don’t you remember? She was out having a petting party with a murderer.”

Before Jemma could do more than whip around and open her mouth, Edith’s cool tones cut through the suddenly-heated atmosphere. “Dot darling, recall we agreed that speculation would only make things unpleasant? Another topic of conversation, perhaps.”

“Oh, what else is there to discuss?” Dot huffed, falling back against her seat. “It’s all anyone can think about. Talking about anything else seems horrid and false.”

“Then be horrid and false for just one meal. No one shall fault you for bad form.”

Jemma glanced sharply at her father, who raised his eyebrows to acknowledge the uncharacteristic sharpness they had both heard in Edith’s response. The other guests appeared to recognise it too, falling silent again and devoting their attention to the pudding.

“Well,” Tony Stark finally said, “anyone would think we were in the presence of the dead right now. Is it ‘bad form’ to ask what happens next? This is, hard to believe, my first murder.”

“No, what? I thought all businessmen had a murder or two under their belts.”

It could have been a joke, but the sharp edges of Roger’s defiant glare left no doubt that he had meant every word. Jemma couldn’t look up, embarrassed beyond belief. Roger was usually a fool, but even at his most inebriated she had never known him be such a beast. “What a sickening thing to say!” Dot cried warmly, saving any of the horrified Simmons family from having to respond to their wayward relation. “You’re in a funk, darling. Better have a smoke as soon as we’re through here.”

“I don’t need a smoke,” he growled, “it’s this damned business getting on my nerves. And the company. But I suppose we’re all prisoners here until the inquest?”

Mr. Weatherby cleared his throat impressively, drawing everyone’s attention, thankfully, away from Roger. “Yes, the inquest. Inspector, I’m sure you realise the delicacy of the situation; it’s simply impossible for me to be away from Town all that time. We’re hearing a debate in the House I really mustn’t miss, and Sonia infinitely prefers Town. Shall I speak with your superiour regarding an exception, or do you have the authority?”

The inspector, grave and dignified, leaned forward to see Mr. Weatherby better. “The Law does not make exceptions, sir. However, it may not be necessary to stay until the inquest.”

“I’m sure it won’t. I fail to see what either my wife or I can offer.” He sent his wife a reassuring look. Busily poking her uneaten pudding and staring appraisingly at Stark, she appeared not to see it.

Jemma was surprised to hear Cousin Mary speak up; hidden between Mr. Stark and her mother, it was easy to forget her presence altogether. “That will be true for most of us, won’t it, Inspector? I was in bed long before anything happened. They hadn’t even begun playing cards when I—”

“I cannot say at this time,” Ross said impressively. “We won’t know what may be important until we have all the evidence. To that end, perhaps we can resume questioning?”

Edith nodded graciously, her earlier snappiness evaporated. “Of course, Inspector. Let’s just clear the table for you.”

“I’ll see Mr. Stark first, then, in about ten minutes.”

This time there was an audible sigh of relief. Jemma had never seen a room clear so quickly, each of the guest/suspects hastily folding their napkins and pushing back their chairs to come to a smash-up at the door as everyone tried to squeeze through at once. Not that she could blame them.  Of all the uncomfortable, awkward meals she had experienced—and she had gone to a French girls’ school run by nuns; there was no shortage of awkwardness there—this one topped the list. She rose but hung back a half-second, thinking to speak with her father, but before she could catch his attention Ross politely plucked at her elbow. “Miss Simmons, if I might have a word?”

 She stopped, looking up at him. “Of course, Inspector. Did you have another question for me?”

“Not a question, no.”

Her father, lingering in the doorway, cleared his throat. Smiling, she waved him on. Surely she could handle Inspector Ross by herself, particularly as she had nothing to conceal. “Well then?”

He shifted uneasily, the first sign of discomfort she had seen from him all day. “Well, miss, if you’ll take my advice, you won’t get too friendly with Mr. Fitz. After all, we really don’t know much about him and he is by no means in the clear yet.”

Her quirked eyebrow dipped into a frown. “What do you mean? If they truly switched rooms, surely that clears him. Even if he had a motive to kill Mr. Macpherson he didn’t have an opportunity, and he had neither to kill Mr. Stark.”

“And how do you know that, Miss Simmons?”

“Well—he told me, of course.”

“Ah, yes. I’m sure you’re a very fine scientist, miss, but if you’ll pardon me for saying so, you aren’t a police officer. If you were, you would know that the only thing we can be sure of is that there is hardly anything we can be sure of. People hide and stretch the truth all the time.”

“Even so,” she said, certain of the flaw in his argument, “the lack of opportunity is the same. Mr. Fitz had just as little time to murder Mr. Stark, had he been in there.”

“Begging your pardon, miss, but that’s all conjecture at this point, isn’t it? Please don’t be angry, but there’s other explanations. For example, you said they were still playing cards when you came in. Did you look to see who it was?”

“No,” she said, responding with bad grace to hide her sudden fear.

“Then how do you know Mr. Macpherson had gone to bed? Perhaps Mr. Fitz changed your clock before you got here yesterday and snuck out after you were in bed. It’s not impossible.” Mistaking her speechless shock for agreement, he gave the air by her shoulder a sympathetic pat. “There, now, I’m sorry to do that, but I’ve daughters of my own, you see, and I shouldn’t want you getting into trouble.”

Unable to move at all, Jemma didn’t flinch away from his attempted comfort. She had been wrong in her assessment of Ross, it seemed: rather than having no imagination, it turned out that he had too much. Otherwise how could he concoct such a complicated plan, when something a million times simpler was right in front of him? One would almost think he _wanted_ Mr. Fitz to be guilty. Mind whirring, she somehow managed a polite response. “Yes, Inspector, I see. I’m sure you’re only doing what you think is right.”

He was about to say something else, but a knock at the door arrested it. “Come in,” he called instead.

Open no more than a sliver, the doorway revealed the face and shoulders of the sergeant. “If you please, sir, Dr. Nobby sent over a note for you. Would you like it now?”

The inspector snapped back into authority, his well-meaning gentleness gone as if it had never been. “Yes, Tompkins, thank you. If you’ll excuse me, Miss Simmons?”

“Of course, Inspector.” He stepped back respectfully, allowing her to slide by on her way to the door. She knew her anger and dismay were written all over her face, but apparently it didn’t matter. The Inspector, she thought as she shut the door behind Tompkins with a shaking hand, was obviously unable to see things right under his nose.


	10. The Icehouse, Again

Fitz hadn’t got enough to eat, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t even tell, really; it was as if he had lost his body entirely somewhere between the study and Miss Simmons’s lab and was now existing as a disembodied mental process. A rubbish mental process, unable to think more than the same three thoughts in circles again and again, but at least that felt real. Even the gears and screws of her centrifuge in his hands couldn’t keep his thoughts in a straight line. Tinkering usually helped him to think, but the twin bombshells he had just received defied logical ordering. What a disaster. The whole thing. Whichever way it went, he was trapped.

The key turned in the lock, seemingly by itself; a half-second later the door swung open and Miss Simmons came in and leaned with her back against the door, breathing heavily. “Thank goodness you found the key. I didn’t know if you would know what it was for.”

“You labeled it,” he said bleakly, though it had made him smile when he came across it in his pocket after lunch.

“Yes, but, I still wasn’t sure if you would—”

“I had to get away,” he said, and she nodded sympathetically.

“Was your mother all right?”

“Fine.” His mother had borne up under far worse blows than the far-off death of a brother she hadn’t even liked; she probably wouldn’t even cry. Though he hadn’t told her that he was the prime suspect. There would be time enough for that, after, later, unless Miss Simmons had appeared to tell him it was more imminent than he anticipated. “Are they coming to charge me?”

“What? No. But, oh, Mr. Fitz, I don't know how, but they still think it’s you,” she said, eyes wide with disbelief.

He nodded. He hadn’t expected anything else.

“But how? They know, they have to know by now—I’d bet that note was the autopsy results—it _couldn’t_ have been you, not with the door locked, even if you knew it was Mr. Macpherson in there—”

So she knew about the room switch, did she? Much good it did anyone now. That was easy to brush aside, if one wanted to enough. “Motive,” he said, “motive, and that I’m nobody in society so I’m convenient.”

“That’s _ridiculous_ ,” she spat, her whole face wrinkling up in disgust.

“Yes, it is. Anyway I _don’t_ have a motive to kill Mr. Stark, but it isn’t likely they’ll believe that when they find out—” He broke off and shook his head, trying to rearrange his thoughts into some semblance of order. It didn’t work any better this time than it had the last dozen. They spiraled and squirmed, eluding his grasp; he thought he would never make sense of them if he tried for a hundred years. Dropping the screwdriver, he put his elbows on the table and pinched the bridge of his nose. Lord, he didn’t even think he could say it.

The soft _whisp_ of her skirts brushed up against him. “Did you not tell them something _else_ they need to know? If you do so right away—”

“No, it isn’t that. At least, it is, at least they’ll think so, but I swear I didn’t know, so it can’t make any difference—”

“Mr. Fitz.” And then, from nowhere, a soft touch lighted on his shoulder and sent warmth spreading down his arm. His head shot up, and there she was right beside him, her brook-brown eyes understanding, her lavender scent calming. He breathed in through his nose. It felt like the first breath he had taken all day. “Mr. Fitz,” she said again, “whatever it is, just tell me. We can fix it together.”

Once again, he was overwhelmed by her surety. She was so confident, so positive she could make everything come out right that he almost believed her; the prospect was alluring. But this newest problem was too big for that. “I don’t see how.”

“Oh.” She dropped her hand and stepped back, staring fixedly at the ground. “Well, if you’d rather not—”

“No, I would rather, only it’s…” He trailed off, shaking his head again. What the hell could it hurt? “Mr. Biggs—”

“Your solicitor?”

He nodded. “He told me, that, um, now my uncle is dead…” The words tripped on his tongue.

Smiling encouragingly, she touched his sleeve again. “Yes?”

She waited quietly for a minute for him to find the words, her hand steady. The part of Fitz that had been raised well knew he probably shouldn’t accept so much physical contact—not when they were alone, not when they hardly knew each other—but she was imparting strength and comfort and everything he needed right now, and this was the worst damn day of his life and he was going to take it, if she wanted to offer. “That, um, I’m the new president of Macpherson Industries.”

Said out loud, the fact sounded even more earth-shattering. Miss Simmons sucked in a breath, her face very white. “The entire thing? All of Macpherson Industries belongs to you?”

He laughed mirthlessly. “Technically, thirty percent of it belongs to the shareholders. The rest, the majority of the soul-sucking behemoth, is mine.”

“Was that part of—”

“No.” Never, never in his wildest dreams could he have imagined something like this. Never, never would he have agreed to it if he had.

She nodded, colour returning. “I imagine that was a bit of a shock. No wonder my centrifuge is in pieces.” A half-smile quirked up the corner of her mouth. He didn’t return it, sympathizing with the centrifuge far too strongly to find it funny. Quickly sobering, she went to the door and turned the key in the lock, then put her hands behind her back and leaned against the wood. “What are you going to do?”

Miserably, he put his face in his hands. “I don’t know.” What was there to be done? He couldn’t even imagine how to begin.

“I expect you’d rather not talk about it,” she finally said.

“No.” He thought he shouted it, but it came out as a whimper. 

“But you didn’t know before.”

“No.” If he had, he would have begged Uncle George to change his mind. He didn’t _want_ the damn thing; he was a scientist, not a titan of industry, for God’s sake. He didn’t even want Head of Department. He didn’t want Head of anything. All he wanted out of life was to build things, and Uncle George had taken that away as surely as if he had left Fitz scrabbling in a Glasgow slum.

“Then they can’t hold that against you.”

It took him a second to remember what she was talking about. The murder, of course, the murder, that more pressing but somehow less terrifying event. She was telling him that the police wouldn’t be able to use his unwanted inheritance as evidence against him, since he hadn’t known about it beforehand. And with that, a new avenue opened up in the twisted labyrinth of his thoughts. He couldn’t make them believe he wouldn’t have killed his uncle for the company, but maybe he could make them believe he hadn’t known that would be the result. He pulled his hands down his face and gripped at the thought like a drowning man to a life preserver, only to find it didn’t bring any comfort. “But how can I prove I didn’t know—that or the room swap or anything? You can’t prove a negative.”

She nodded, thoughtful. “I suppose that’s true. One could build a decent argument, but it would never be a complete proof. Of course is anything? There’s always a margin of error.”

“It doesn’t have to be complete, just convincing. Juries have hanged men on incomplete evidence before.”

“ _Do_ stop saying that,” she said with a stamp of her foot. “If we can’t make a case built on the negative fact—which I agree is shoddy reasoning—we’ll just have to do it from the positive. And _that_ fact is that, unless you worked it out with Mr. Stark beforehand, you couldn’t have known it would be your uncle in that room. I suppose the pair of you had no reason to want him dead?”

Just the opposite, in fact, but Fitz only shook his head. He wasn’t privy to the details of whatever classified project had brought Stark to Macpherson Industries, but that in itself told him it was better not spoken of to a comparative stranger, no matter how sympathetic she might be. Instead he said, “It seems a lot more likely that someone would—”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I thought!”

“What is?”

Her brows quirked down over excited amber eyes. “That someone would be trying to kill Mr. Stark instead. That is what you meant, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he said, “but how did you—”

“It’s only logical,” she said, as if it was obvious. “I didn’t want to presume, since I don’t know either of them, but everyone knows Mr. Stark and no one, I think—”

He saw where she was going and cut in. “I’ve never met any of these people before, and I think I would have done. Mr. Stark, though—”

“Yes, exactly. I can think of a hundred reasons to kill _him_.”

“No, really?” he asked, startled.

She waved a hand airily. “Not _mine_ , of course, he’s never done a thing to me, but in general. At lunch—” A frown flashed across her face. “Never mind. Suffice it to say, your uncle didn’t seem the kind of person anyone would want to kill, and Stark _does_.”

Almost without thinking, he picked up a screw and the small nut that matched it. They would hold two gears together, if there was any sense to the internal mechanism of this machine…“Well, there’s the old rumour of profiteering.”

It was her turn to be startled. “What, really?”

He didn’t look up from the work. That gear fed into this cog…“Really it’s a rumour. But I’ve never seen anything to suggest it’s true, and I’ve been going through the old War files for my work on the gas mask. Perhaps their safety measures weren’t as strict as they should be, but the equipment didn’t fail in the field.”

Coming across from the door, she leaned one elbow on the table and picked up a cog with her other hand, holding it out to him on an open palm. “I rather think we can rule that out as a motive then, don’t you? It isn’t likely to have any bearing on the situation.”

“No,” he agreed, looking around for the screwdriver.

“Of course,” she said, handing it to him with her brow furrowed, “we don’t actually have a motive for anyone to kill Mr. Stark, either. It’s unsupported speculation at this point. Anyway my father says it’s foolish to rely solely on motive; murder apparently happens at the convergence of motive and opportunity.”

“So who would have had an opportunity, then?”

This seemed to bring her up short. “How am I to know? We were in here together all night, remember? I don’t even know when the swap happened, only that Mr. Stark said it was late.”

“We need that information first. Right now we’re making the same mistake as the police and theorizing ahead of the facts. We need evidence.”

Her eyes brightened. “Evidence is easy. What we need is data. Like in—”

“A table.” His voice joined hers as their gazes met and she nodded eagerly. “What kind of scientists are we, Mr. Fitz, trying to draw conclusions without proper documentation? There must be essential data points. If we can determine those—”

“You’ve already said, haven’t you? Motive and opportunity.”

“And suspicious circumstances, don’t you think? At least that’s always a column in books.”

“All right.” Shoving the bits of centrifuge aside, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his notebook to spread on the table. Fully open, it was smaller than his two hands together. He stopped and scratched his hair. “Actually, brown paper would be better.”

She stooped to sweep a folded square from a drawer somewhere, handing it to him before scrabbling in another drawer. As he unfolded the paper, meticulously flattening out the wrinkles, she produced a straight-edge and a pencil. “Do you mind? Your handwriting’s a good bit better than mine.”

“It has to be,” he said, accepting them and beginning to sketch out a graph. “One mistaken character can be the difference between success and failure.”

She hung over his shoulder, chin in both her her hands as she watched. Highly aware of her careful scrutiny, Fitz was doubly careful to make his lines perfectly straight. Not that it mattered, but.  Girls, from what he had gathered in his limited experience, had odd tastes; one never knew what they might find worthy of attention. Miss Simmons was a scientist; surely she appreciated craftsman-like work. And then he remembered that he was making a graph to keep track of information to help them figure out who might have killed his uncle and left him with the twin millstones of a possible murder charge and Macpherson Industries, and any mental energy he had been using to notice the golden glints in Miss Simmons’s hair quickly re-routed to its old paths.

Chart done, he began jotting names down the left side: _Mr. Stark. Miss Potts._

“Oh, surely not Miss Potts!”

“Why not?”

“Oh, I—” She flushed, shaking her head. “Never mind. Only she seems nice. But that’s nothing, I suppose. She went to bed before the men even came in, so she wouldn’t know it wasn’t Mr. Stark in there. We don’t know; she could have a reason to kill him. It’s just possible.”

Glancing down at the table, he re-counted the rows he had drawn. “I think,” he began, not meeting her eyes, “it would be more thorough to include everyone not ourselves on the chart. Just so we can make sure we have all the pertinent information.” His piece said, he darkened a line with every appearance of deep concentration. He didn’t want to think about what would happen to him if she chose to take offence at the fact that he had just placed four of her relatives in the “suspect” category.

He could feel her catch and hold a breath beside him, but when she spoke it was with a firmness he hadn’t expected. “Yes, you’re quite right. Of course my mother would know about any changes in room situations, and Cousin Mary went to bed early too-”

“Hold up.” He stopped writing to tap the end of the pencil in a brisk staccato. “That’s the second time you’ve mentioned know who was sleeping where—”

 “Yes, because it’s important, isn’t it? If _you_ had a motive to kill Mr. Stark—”

“So we need another column, then.”

He extended out the top horizontal line and drew a long vertical slash down the page, then returned to listing the names. When he was done, he stepped back to let her see better, placing his hands at the small of his back. A bad idea. With the whole thing visible at once the empty spaces seem to multiply, a mocking brown expanse of unknowns. How could they even begin to fill it all up, much less make sense of it to come to any kind of conclusion?

“Well,” she said, “apart from the obvious—”

“Which is?” he asked, bitterly.

Snatching the pencil from behind his ear, she scrawled _obviously_ across the upper right box. Her handwriting, sprawling and generous, somehow balanced out the blank space, and he felt a disproportionate amount of relief spreading through him. “My handwriting _is_ better than yours.”

 

“Do shut up.” But her eyes twinkled. “As I was saying, apart from that, we’ve got a great deal of empty space to fill. What do you think ought to be our plan of attack? I’m not sure how to proceed without a hypothesis.”

He took the pencil back from her and began doodling at the edge of the paper. “We don’t use hypotheses in engineering, but if it was an ordinary problem I would say it’s too early to tackle it head on yet. We need to do background research before we can even tell what variables we’re dealing with.”

“Gather the data,” she agreed, nodding sagely. “Which I suppose we can only do by questioning the”—she cast a brief, troubled glance at the list of names—“the others. A list seems warranted.”

“A list of what we need to know—”

“—and questions to ask to get the information, and whom to speak with first. Would you like a new sheet of paper for that, Mr. Fitz?”

“I wish you’d call me Fitz,” he said without thinking, only realizing that he had actually said it aloud when he noticed that her eyebrows were halfway to her hairline. No matter that he had nearly done so every single time she addressed him before, he hadn’t meant to just blurt it out like that. And she obviously didn’t know what to say in response, as the polite space for a response lengthened into an awkward gap. “Sorry,” he said finally, “I’m sorry. It was a bit automatic. Yes, I think another piece—”

Her words ran over his in a rush as she ducked her head, tucking her hair behind her ears. “No, you’re right. After all we’re partners, aren’t we? Colleagues?”

“In the general sense of the term,” he stammered, not looking at her either.

“And in this,” she said, indicating the chart. “And, after all, I’m one of the few people to know you’re now a multimillionaire. There’s no need to stand on ceremony.”

He heaved a great sigh of relief. “Exactly what—no need to stand on ceremony. That’s just what I was thinking.” It wasn’t. But there was no need to tell her that.

“Right.” She nodded briskly. “I’ll call you Fitz. And you may call me Simmons, as we’re partners. I believe that’s proper.”

His heart sank a little. Fitz was all the name he had to offer; he had hoped to be granted the same privilege as that awful Dot and call her _Jemma_. Then she dropped her gaze to her hands and added in a much quieter tone, “I’ve never had a partner before.”

Looking down at her stooped shoulders and busily twiddling fingers, Fitz knew what she was really saying. It was never easy to be the smartest person in the room, but even less so when the room was full of people who disregarded you as a matter of course. Suffer enough snubs and one started to expect them. He knew that as well as anyone. “I haven’t either,” he offered with a timid smile. “So, Simmons, I expect we’ll figure it out as we go along.”

Her head lifted like a blooming flower and the look she gave him was pure glowing gratitude. “I expect so, Fitz.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Didn't see that bombshell coming, did you? :)
> 
> Muchos gracias to Madalayna for making the chart and saving me a million headaches trying to draw it and invent Fitz's handwriting myself!


	11. Tony Stark

After nearly an hour of vigorous discussion, they finally arrived at what Fitz insisted on calling “The Fitz-Simmons List of Critical Data”. Jemma wrote it down in her sprawling hand, not willing to let him have it all his own way:

  1.      Who knew that Mr. Stark and Mr. Macpherson switched rooms?
  2.      Who was in the drawing room at any given time?
  3.      Who might have history with Mr. Stark that would lead to a desire to kill him?



That last item was perhaps a little verbose, but at least it was grammatically correct, which was more than Jemma could say for Mr. Fitz—she meant Fitz’s proposal of “who would want to knock off Stark based on something from the past?” Once the list was written, they leaned over it, shoulders brushing against each other.

“Well,” Fitz said, “it’s obvious where we have to start.”

She rolled her eyes. “Where everyone else should have started, honestly: Mr. Stark.”

Easier said than done, she thought as they roamed the entirety of the grounds in search of him. They had thought they might be able to catch him on his way out of questioning, but—to the surprise of neither—Inspector Ross was not as thorough as she would have expected. Also, perhaps they would have been better served to stay on task, rather than going off on an interesting if pointless digression about theoretical physics. But he knew so much more about it than she did, it would have been a wasted opportunity to not ask every question she could think of. Jemma Simmons was not one to waste an opportunity, particularly not one that involved both learning _and_ the pleasure of listening to an extremely intriguing man explain in a Scottish accent. That would have really been a crime.

Beside her, Fitz was breathing rather heavily. “I don’t suppose you know how many acres there are in your estate? I was a sprinter at school.”

“There aren’t many places left,” she responded, mentally running through them. The tennis courts, her father’s fountain, the garages, the pond…all checked, all Stark-less. “I think the only one left is the gardener’s shed, though goodness knows why he would be there—”

“Don’t underestimate Mr. Stark,” Fitz said with a grimace. “He’s the sort to put his nose into everything.” 

Jemma didn’t doubt his assessment, but she was surprised nonetheless to find the door standing open and clanking sounds mixed with tuneless humming coming from within. Fitz shot her a _told-you-so_ look, which she quickly decided was the first of his expressions she didn’t wish to see more of, and gestured for her to enter ahead of him. Blinking in the dim light, Jemma stifled a cough and tried to locate the source of the noises. “Mr. Stark? Are you in here?”

“Jemma!” He popped out from the far back corner, the white of his undershirt garish in the dark and dusty room. Apparently engineers were not particular about proper standards of dress, she thought, quickly averting her gaze and catching a glare from Fitz out the corner of her eye.

“Why aren’t you wearing a shirt?” he demanded crossly, “don’t you know ladies are liable to walk in at any time?”

Stark twirled the wrench he was holding. “Mr. Fitz, I thought you were an engineer. You of all people should understand the shocking state of one’s shirt after working with machinery.”

“Yes, but,” Fitz sputtered. “Most people, I think, cover up rather than take off. You’re making Miss Simmons uncomfortable.”

She stifled a giggle at his attempt to defend her honour, finding it old-fashioned but oddly sweet. “I think the gardener keeps smocks in here, if you’d like—” But her fumbled search at the pegs behind the door came up empty and she checked again, surprised. “Perhaps not.”

Already back at work, Stark continued unconcerned. “No matter. You’re exactly the person I was hoping to see. Do you have a flashlight in here somewhere? Since this shed doesn’t have electricity, I’m going to need more light than this.”

_Flashlight_? She quirked an eyebrow at Fitz, who shrugged and plunged one hand in his pocket. “I’ve got a torch you can borrow.”

Ducking back out of sight, Stark raised a casual hand and waved them over. “Seems a bit archaic, but okay. Bring it here.”

Honestly, the gall of this man was truly infuriating. Jemma would have rolled her eyes, but it took every bit of her attention to keep herself upright as she and Fitz picked their way through the detritus of at least three gardeners. She tore a hole in her frock and there was a nasty moment in which she tripped and would have impaled her hand on a rake if Fitz hadn’t caught her wrist, but they eventually stood, dusty and disheveled, by the wooden table where Bucket laid out his seedlings during the winter. Strewn across it now were the bits and pieces of what Jemma assumed had once been a lawnmower. “Why are all our guests determined to take our things apart?” she huffed, brushing loose strands of hair off her face.

“I did ask,” Fitz said, aggrieved, and Mr. Stark blinked at her.

“I couldn’t get at my car. This is the only place I could find that wasn’t locked. I promise I’ll put it back together. Well”—he picked up what looked like a blade twisted nearly beyond recognition—“mostly back together. Can I have that torch?” Concentrated on the parts in front of him, he didn’t look up to receive the slim silver tube Fitz placed in his hand. It was the smallest torch Jemma had ever seen; honestly she was rather covetous of it. As his fingers wrapped all the way around it, Stark’s attention shifted rapidly. He dropped the wrench and held the torch between his two index fingers, flicking it on, looking down the length, throwing the beam into the shadows by the door. “This is impressive,” he said finally. “Did MI make this?”

“No, I did.”

She saw just a hint of a shadow cross Fitz’s face and guessed he was remembering that he and Macpherson Industries were now synonymous. Which, she knew, would require some time to get used to. Stark cocked his head, staring; Jemma couldn’t tell what he was thinking, if it was in fact anything at all. But surely no one could have as few thoughts in their head as Tony Stark appeared to? Whatever it was, it came to a sudden stop and Stark flipped the torch around in his hand, directing the light down at his work. “While your appearance is fortuitous, I assume you didn’t divine that I would need a flashlight and come on purpose to bring it to me.”

“No,” Fitz said, looking at her. They had decided in the Icehouse that she should be the one to tackle Stark, as he appeared to like women better than men, and this was a perfect cue. Ideal. She really wasn’t one to miss such an opportunity. But the practiced lines came skidding to a stop on her tongue and she felt her palms suddenly getting clammy. Darting her eyes to the side and then the ceiling, she took a deep breath, opened her mouth, clasped her hands in front of her, and froze. Oh, goodness, it was her sixth-form play all over again. Perhaps she should have mentioned earlier that subterfuge was not one of her skill sets. What was she meant to say?

The barest tap of a knuckle on the back of her hand sent a spark through her, and she turned to Fitz to find him nodding encouragingly. “Go on,” he mouthed, and whether it was the nod or the slightly tingling thrum buzzing across her skin, she somehow found the words she was looking for. “Yes, um, I happened to mention to Fitz—that is, Mr. Fitz, I mean—what you said at lunch about exchanging rooms with Mr. Macpherson. He couldn’t think why that might have happened…”

Stark glanced up, suddenly sharp; every muscle seemed tensed to snap. “Is this another interrogation? Because I just finished one of those and I don’t like the idea of doing it again.”

“What?” she laughed, “no, it’s—it’s—” Unable to improvise, she silently pleaded for help. Fitz stepped forward, moving slightly in front of her and pinching the bridge of his nose.

“I’m only trying to figure out what could have happened. I just can’t understand how my uncle came to be there. If I knew it might be easier to accept.”

She was a little surprised at the casual way he threw out the relationship—from last night she had gathered it was a sore subject—but when Stark blanched and stilled it was obvious why Fitz had done it. “Hell, he was your uncle? I’m sorry. Truly, I am.”

“We weren’t close,” Fitz said. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to know everything I can about what happened.”

Stark nodded, staring down at the table. “When my old man died,” he said, apropos of nothing, “I bought both cars from the junk man and went over them with a fine-tooth comb for two months. And I didn’t even like my old man that much. Of course,” he added with a quick look through half-closed eyes, “I didn’t want to kill him, either.”

“He didn’t! He couldn’t have!” Jemma protested at the same time Fitz shook his head and said “I wouldn’t do that and I don’t want to kill you, either.”

As Stark looked back and forth between them, Jemma could have sworn there was a flicker of amusement in the twist of his mouth. “All right,” he said, going back to his work, “I believe you. No one who invented this flashlight would be stupid enough to kill a man that way. But, like I told the police, I can’t help you. The booze-to-blood ratio was much too high last night for me to remember…” He trailed off, sketching something in the air. “Anything, really.”

Fitz slumped visibly. Undeterred, Jemma called up her reams of research on the effects of heavy drinking and shook her head. “Unless you actually lost consciousness, you must remember _something_. You told me at lunch that you exchanged rooms ‘late last night’—whose idea was it?”

“Oh, that? It was mine. I don’t like the sun coming in my windows in the morning, particularly not when–let’s say, when sleep is the only cure.”

Which made sense, as the windows in the Peacock Suite faced full east and the sun in the morning was inescapable from six o’clock on. But that didn’t explain… “Why didn’t you take care of it earlier?”

“That I can’t remember. I’m really only confident of the other thing because that’s what the others said.”

“What others?” Fitz asked before she could. “When?”

“This morning, while you two were enjoying the company of the inspector. Mrs. Simmons and Dot and…oh, I can’t remember who else it was. Maybe Lark.”

She shook her head at Fitz—no, she didn’t know who Lark was intended to refer to—and mentally ran through the List of Critical Data. Hope was slim that he would be able to tell them anything specific, knocking out potential answers to 1 and 2, but perhaps something not related to last night wouldn’t be lost in the oceans of alcohol. “Mr. Stark,” she asked, “do you think someone wanted to kill you?”

His eyes became very wide and innocent, and he threw open his arms in a general appeal. “Upon my word, I don’t know why. I am the very soul of selflessness and bonhomie. But then I don’t know why anyone would want to kill Macpherson, either, so it doesn’t make sense that way. I don’t suppose we can hope for a homicidal maniac?”

“Oh good,” Fitz said tartly, pulling a face, “then we can just wait for the next murder and maybe then we’ll have a better idea how to catch the loony who wants to kill us all in our beds, just for fun.”

“I guess that’s true,” Stark said with regret. “Not everyone sleeps with a pistol.”

He turned back to the bench and resumed humming, apparently considering the interview over. They had got nowhere near the amount of information they had hoped for, but Jemma rather guessed that if they tried to press him, Mr. Stark would just end up angry and unwilling to give them anything else should he remember it. She looked at Fitz, one eyebrow raised in a question. Tucking his notebook back into his pocket, he nodded an agreement. Men like Mr. Stark had to be handled very carefully—if he hadn’t learned that much from working with his uncle, the whole thing was even more of a waste than it appeared. Better to leave now and try again later from another tack. “If you’re sure you can’t remember anything else…” he said, just in case, not expecting anything.

“Sorry, kid.” Stark waved a hand. “I’m going to borrow this flashlight in payment for my information. I’ll give it back eventually,” he said over Fitz’s sputtered protests. “But I need it now.”

His torch, built with his own two hands and the only one of its kind? “Oh, well, then—”

“Thank you, Mr. Stark,” Simmons cut in hurriedly, saving him from saying something quite impolite.

“Anything for a lovely lady.”

They were halfway back to the door before he called her first name. Wobbling on one heel, Simmons only partially turned, expending most of her energy on an exasperated look that gave Fitz no little pleasure. “I prefer Miss Simmons, actually.”

Ignoring her, Stark barreled on. “Is your cousin good at paying back debts of honour? I found about twenty IOUs with his name on them in my pocket this morning.”

Her mouth pursed up primly. “I’m sure I couldn’t say.”

“I probably shouldn’t have taken them, but it seemed like the best way to avoid a fist-fist. He isn’t a very good loser, is he? He’ll have to get over that if he wants to get anywhere in life. No one likes a sulk.”

“Quite right,” she said coolly. “But then Roger has other qualities that people do like, so perhaps it balances out.”

For the life of him Fitz couldn’t think of a single one, but she was his cousin and presumably knew him better. When he asked her, though, after they had left the shed and were holed up in the tiny space they had found Sir Robert in that morning, she only made a face.

“I don’t know. Only he has a great many friends and there are always plenty of girls chasing after him, so he must have something, mustn’t he? But really I just couldn’t let Mr. Stark get away with saying those rotten things.”

There was that loyalty he had recognised instinctively, tempered by the honesty he was beginning to realize was an essential part of her character. Settling in the grass beside the chair, he leaned back on his hands to look up at her. “Are they true, though?”

“Yes.” She drew her legs up underneath her, arranging her skirt carefully and resting her knees on her chin. “And he’s bally awful at paying his debts. I had to loan him some money at school—ten pounds or something trifling like that—which I still haven’t seen. I wonder how much he lost?”

Fitz reeled a little, trying to conceive of a world in which ten pounds was a trifle. Though he got a decent wage now, he sent most of it home to his mother and hadn’t quite grasped that penny-pinching was no longer a necessity. Ten pounds would keep him comfortable for a month. “Could be anywhere from £100 to £1000, assuming there’s actually twenty and they’re all for the same amount. Would—” He stopped, poking at the ground with a stick as he tried to think the nicest way to phrase it.

Happily, she did it for him. “Would that be a motive?” At his nod, she frowned thoughtfully. “I think we ought to write it down, but I would be surprised. Uncle Morton keeps Roger on a short allowance, but he never leaves him out to dry. It wouldn’t look good.” She clapped a hand over her mouth, the sudden motion making the glints in her hair glimmer as it swung. “Oh dear, that’s terribly private. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“It’s all right,” he said, offering a half-smile. “If I tell anyone, you know plenty of my secrets to tell in retribution.”

She didn’t smile back, instead cocking her head and regarding him seriously. “You won’t, though. And neither will I.”

“No, I know.” He glanced away, unable to meet her earnestness. It was unsettling, having someone like her believe so firmly in his innate trustworthiness.  Most of the time, people didn’t bother with him long enough to notice. Clearing his throat, he pulled his notebook out of his pocket and pretended to examine their list. “Well, that was a pointless exercise. We didn’t get anything useful.”

Simmons agreed, then appeared to reconsider. “At least we have a little information we can try to confirm with other people. I really think our best bet is to speak with my mother. She may be a bridge fiend, but she also sleeps with one eye open. She’ll be able to give us accurate information we can hold the others to.”

“As to times and things? Probably, yes.” Assuming, of course, that she wasn’t lying or hadn’t worked up some nefarious plot with, oh, the housekeeper, which wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. He got to his feet and started pacing the tiny clearing, hands resting at the small of his back. Apparently the clear vision she had towards her cousin didn’t extend to her mother, not that he could blame her. Still, they couldn’t move forward that way. The last thing he wanted to do was suggest Simmons’s family was engaged in illegal activity, but she was making it awfully hard.

“Obviously,” she said from behind him, her voice coloured with surprise. “Naturally, my hypothesis is that my mother didn’t do it, but I understand one can’t rule her out on my say-so. All facts must be verified.”

“How did you—”

She rolled her eyes. “Unfortunately, I’ve seen that face often enough in our admittedly brief acquaintance to know you’ve got something unpleasant you don’t want to say, and I assumed from the way you leapt up like you were sitting on a hot coal it had something to do with me. Simple deduction, Watson.”

“Perhaps my foot was pins-and-needles,” he retorted, “and of the two of us, you’re obviously the doctor.”

“But I can’t grow a mustache, and Holmes was a chemist. And you’re too fidgety for your blood flow to have been cut off for any length of time. I was right, wasn’t it?”

Of course she was, blast it, and it wasn’t fair that she could be so pretty _and_ that clever. Throwing himself down on the grass and plucking at it fiercely, he changed the subject entirely. She was already too smug as it was. “What we ought to do first is speak to Miss Potts.”

“Why?” she asked, switching tracks with ease. “I suppose she might have a motive—”

“—and an opportunity, since she went to bed before everyone else—”

“—even so, that just means she won’t be able to tell us anything. If she’s guilty, she’ll lie; if she’s innocent, she won’t know.”

“Aha, my dear Watson. That is where your privileged background fails you.” Clambering to his feet, he held out his hand to help her up. “The secretary always knows everything.”


	12. Miss Potts

They found Miss Potts reading on the veranda in a wide-brimmed hat, despite the fact that her chaise lounge was placed in the only shaded part of the terrace. “I freckle something awful,” she explained without shutting her book, “and I prefer not to rely on cosmetics if I don’t have to.”

Simmons murmured agreement; Fitz squirmed uncomfortably. “Can’t you find somewhere else to read?”

“Maybe, but then the constable wouldn’t be able to see me. I wouldn’t want to get him in trouble.”

Peering through the French doors behind her, Fitz recognized the drawing room. He hadn’t realized last night that this was where they led. At the far end of the room inside, the stolid constable who liked corpses even less than Fitz did stood guard; in between the room was dotted with five or six heads of which he was only confident in identifying Mrs. Weatherby’s blonde bob. “What’s he doing?”

Obviously preoccupied with something else, Simmons answered distractedly. “He’s keeping the people who haven’t been questioned yet under watch so they can’t plot together or tamper with the evidence. But that means they haven’t questioned you yet, Miss Potts?”

“I believe,” the other woman said delicately, “they’ve decided to question the rest of us in order of social status.”

From Simmons’s pursed mouth, Fitz assumed she felt the same way he did about that—namely, it was just about the most ineffective way to get at the truth that he could imagine. As if the mere fact of his title meant Sir Robert would be more likely to have pertinent information that Miss Potts! Though, he supposed, if they were still taking the surely erroneous view that the murderer meant to kill Uncle George…following that assumption to its logical end, he realized it _wouldn’t_ matter who they talked to next. They had already talked to everyone important, then. Fitz felt a cold pit of worry open up in his stomach. How had he managed to forget again?

“Mr. Fitz.”

His reverie came to a sudden halt and he looked at Miss Potts expectantly. Closing her book and setting it on her lap, she leaned forward with more kindness than he had seen from anyone besides Simmons. “I hope you’ll let me say how sorry I am for what happened. It was a horrible mistake. Mr. Stark feels awful too.”

“Oh, does he?” Fitz wouldn’t have guessed Simmons could inject that much sarcasm into her tone, though perhaps most of it was expressed by her eloquent eyebrows. “We were just speaking with him and he didn’t seem to care at all. He told us he thought we should hope for a homicidal maniac.”

Miss Potts closed her eyes briefly, an expression Fitz had felt on his own face more than once. “Can’t you ever just act like a normal person?” she demanded of no one in particular, then turned back to Fitz. “I apologise on his behalf, then. He tends to get flippant when he’s feeling things.”

“ ’s all right,” he muttered, his hand going up to rest at the back of his neck. In the grand scheme of things, it didn’t really matter if Tony Stark was appropriately sorry for the accident that had caused another man’s death. Unless he himself had caused it, of course. Fitz peered at Simmons from under his elbow and she, with the mind-reading ability he was beginning not to question, dropped into a nearby chair and smiled disarmingly, tucking her hair behind her ear.

“I’m sorry, too; I wasn’t thinking of how Mr. Stark would feel. It must be terrifying to think someone wants to kill you.”

It sounded more natural an opening than her ‘discreet’ questioning of Stark, but she still couldn’t fool a baby. If he had known how bad she was at lying, he might have reconsidered the wisdom of investigating on their own. Miss Potts wasn’t fooled either. “Is that the line you’re taking? It makes sense, I suppose. You would know, Mr. Fitz, if there was any reason to suspect the guests of wanting to kill Mr. Macpherson.”

“And you would know for Mr. Stark,” he suggested, but she shook her head.

“Not with Mr. Stark. People can go from being best friends with him to wanting to strangle him in two seconds flat. Goodness knows I’d like to kill him myself sometimes, for a moment’s peace if nothing else.”

Simmons made a surprised noise, but he nodded, understanding. “I think that’s par for the course, yeah? But there wasn’t anything outstanding that you knew about. No one who came into the weekend with a grudge, maybe.”

“Not to my knowledge,” she said, opening her book with half a smile and an air of finality.  

So that was that, then—another suspect, another person either unable or unwilling to help them. Fitz had hoped for more from Miss Potts, who had been kind to him before anything happened, but perhaps it was too much to ask. Or perhaps she was merely sticking to the secretary’s code of silence, since _her_ boss wasn’t dead. Either way, the lack of progress was discouraging. Stark and Miss Potts were their best leads; if neither could tell them anything, where would the essential data come from? Feeling a need to regroup, he caught Simmons’s eye and pointed out towards the lawn. She gave him a subtle headshake in return, two furrows creasing her forehead. She was thinking something, that much was obvious, but what Fitz didn’t know.  Her next question didn’t clear it up, either.

“But as far as you know, no one had a reason to kill Mr. Stark when you went to bed last night?”

If Miss Potts was irritated, she controlled it beautifully. Fitz was envious of her skill. “No. The only members of the party we’ve met before are the Weatherbys, and that only briefly. And Mr. Macpherson, of course, but he hardly killed himself.” As if the thought had just occurred to her, she stopped to consider it. “He didn’t, I suppose?”

“No,” Fitz said, and Simmons added, “what a clumsy way to kill oneself, anyway. What if you didn’t stuff the vent well enough?”

“Is that what happened?” Miss Potts asked. “Well, that would have been a useless attempt to kill Tony. He sleeps with the windows open.”

And with the size of the room, the concentration of gas in the air wouldn’t have been high enough to kill him. But who would have known his sleeping habits? More importantly, would anyone have known the properties of carbon monoxide? Fitz ran through the guest list, only barely listening to the conversation that flowed on without him.

“But with the drapes pulled to, it’s hard to imagine the fresh air can get in,” Simmons was saying, and Fitz had a muddled memory of her rushing around the first story flinging open windows. Miss Potts only shrugged.

“He’s a man of contradictions. At home his bedroom faces west so he doesn’t have drapes at all.”

Simmons looked down at her shoes, intentionally casual. “He told us that he wanted to change rooms so the sun wouldn’t come in. Does that surprise you?”

“No,” Miss Potts said, “though I was surprised they switched.”

“Oh!”

They very carefully did not make eye contact, but he could see the triumph in the corner of her smile and hear the round surprise at having pulled it off. “He didn’t tell you beforehand, then,” he said, wanting to be perfectly clear. “Only Macpherson would have given me the responsibility to sort, and—”

“No,” Miss Potts said, the corners of her mouth tucked back firmly. “I don’t know when he decided to do it, but I didn’t speak with him at all after we went up to dress for dinner. As you know, Mr. Fitz, since you were sitting between us.”

“There was not a lot of discussion going on at that side of the table,” he admitted, hopeful neither of them noticed the redness he felt creeping into his ears. He didn’t really care to explain how his manners had deserted him when faced with the prospect of a beautiful girl sitting in the glow of a sunset and casually discussing poison gasses. Miss Potts’s quirked eyebrow told him she was not fooled. Happily, Simmons appeared not to be paying attention to him. Fitz continued quickly. “Are you worried about him?”

“Oh.” She stopped and gave a wry chuckle. “Only every day. But he takes care of himself. I expect he told you about the pistol?”

“Yes,” they said at the same time.

“Rest assured, that’s not the only safeguard he provides himself.”

Instantly, Fitz was all-over gooseflesh, the hair on his neck prickling sharply. Miss Potts’s words were pleasant enough, her face still smiling openly, but he heard something in her voice that, combined with the sudden steel color of her eyes, made him suddenly very nervous. Simmons got hastily to her feet and darted around the back of the chair, clutching it so hard her knuckles turned white. “Oh, well, of course not,” she said, voice high. “Naturally, one wouldn’t expect a man like Mr. Stark to leave himself unprotected. He _is_ one of the most successful weapons developers in the world. I’m sure he has _loads_ of things, you might even say an arsenal—”

“Not quite.” Miss Potts looked from one to the other gravely. “But enough that it would be a very bad idea to try to kill him again.”

Their horrified shrieks were in unison:

“We didn’t try to kill him the first time!”

“He doesn’t have to be afraid of _us_!”

“No,” she said, drawing out the word deliberately. “And that’s true about me, as well.”

 Fitz heaved a sigh of relief. The steel was gone, replaced by Miss Potts’s normal blue, and she appeared rather more amused than terrifying. Simmons slumped over the chair, pressing her hand to her chest. “Lord, that was frightening. For a second I thought—”

“I wanted you to,” Miss Potts said, reclining back against the chaise lounge. “I’m more or less harmless, but someone here _isn’t_ , and you can’t be so obvious when you’re trying to detect things.”

“Bother,” Simmons said, “I thought I was doing so well.”

Both sides of Miss Potts’s mouth quirked up, but she made what Fitz considered a valiant effort to conceal how poorly Simmons had been doing. “Afraid not. Luckily for you, I don’t have anything to hide. More, I have a vested interest in making sure that the killer is caught, so I’m happy to tell you everything I know, if it will help you or the police find who that is.”

Simmons pressed her lips together, glancing at him as she pushed her hair behind her ear. He knew what that look said: _can we trust her?_

_I think we can._

She nodded once. But, pulling out his notebook, he realized that they didn’t have anything more to ask her. “Sorry,” he said, “but you’ve already answered the questions you can. At present, we haven’t got anything more to ask.”

“Will you accept some advice, then?”

They nodded, feeling rather chastised.

“If you’re going to pursue this—which I don’t blame you for trying—you have ask questions more carefully. Work your way around subjects; don’t try to hit them dead on. People get nervous in the face of direct questions, particularly people who have something to hide.”

“But asking questions is the best way to get answers,” Simmons said, frowning.

“Not when dealing with people, I’m afraid. I’ve found, more often than not, it’s what people don’t say that’s important.”

“Their secrets, you mean,” Fitz said, thinking uneasily of the whoppers he and Simmons were concealing.

“Not just that. People have whole lives they don’t share, even though they aren’t secret. Nearly everything you want to know about people is caught in there, someplace.”

“Even you?” Fitz asked.

“Even me! Because whatever the answer is, I don’t think anyone has enough information to figure it out yet, not even the police.”

Fitz heard what she didn’t say and smiled, grateful. Sighing again, Simmons came around him to perch on the railing of the veranda. He hoisted himself up next to her, bracing himself with hands and heels. “Actually,” she said, “I have got a question I meant to ask Fitz earlier, but you’ll probably know as well. Why was Mr. Macpherson invited so suddenly? That is, why was he invited at all? Even Mr. Stark must know you don’t just invite other people to parties you aren’t giving.”

Fitz had mused over that question himself several times this weekend. Lying in bed last night the part of him that had been raised Presbyterian was convinced it was so he could meet Miss Simmons, but surely even a fervent believer could find no justification to assume Uncle George’s death was predestined. He, too, looked quizzically to Miss Potts, waiting to hear her answer. Drawing her eyebrows together, she looked out over the grass for one or two seconds too long. “I don’t think I can say,” she said finally. “Not because I don’t want to tell you, but because it’s not mine to share. If it was, Mr. Fitz would know as well.”

Simmons’s face grew suspicious again. “How do you know, then?”

She laughed. “You know Tony well enough by now to know he doesn’t keep anything in. I know a great deal I wouldn’t with another boss.”

Staring down at the ground, Fitz tried to remember what, exactly, Uncle George had told him about the invitation two days ago. “I know they were working on something, some sort of collaboration,” he said slowly. “Was it about that?”

Miss Potts made a considering face, tipping her head back and forth. “Yes and no. More than that I really can’t say, Mr. Fitz, I’m sorry.”

“Oh well then,” Simmons said. “It was worth a try. Would Mr. Stark tell us, do you think? Would it be all right to ask him?”

“He might, but you really ought to ask your lawyer.”

He and Simmons exchanged startled glances. Obviously, they both knew that anything important to Macpherson Industries was his to worry about now, but he couldn’t believe anything truly vital could be happening without his present knowledge. Surely Mr. Biggs would have said something on the phone. Then again, he had been rather a mess when he called earlier and unwilling to pay for another three minutes, so perhaps there just hadn’t been the time. “I’ll do that. Soon.”

Simmons touched his arm lightly, maintaining her balance with just one hand on the rail. “But later, when everyone’s dressing for dinner. Otherwise—”

“—they’ll overhear, yeah. Maybe you could—”

“—stand guard. Excellent idea.” She smiled up at him, patting his sleeve again. “I’m sure it’s nothing, though.”

The warmth radiating off her banished a little of his worry, but not enough. “Oh no, just a horrible secret known only to the presidents and their lawyers. They’re probably trying to sell the company out from under us.”

“Oh, Fitz! Are you always so pessimistic?”

Her eye roll did what her kindness could not, and he did almost smile in return. “Nearly always.”

“Well, you ought to stop. Aren’t you a scientist, for heaven’s sake? How do you ever innovate if you think everything’s going to be rotten?”

“Oh, now,” he started, ready to explain at length why pessimism was often an asset in engineering. Then strident tones from the opposite end of the veranda interrupted, causing all three of them to look over sharply.

“Oh, _there_ you are, darling!”

With a quick _damn_ only he could hear, Simmons hopped off the railing. “Mother? Did you need something?”

Mrs. Simmons glided into their circle, giving a gracious smile to Miss Potts and a distinct cut to him before turning to her daughter. “I’m afraid so. Would you please come with me? I’ve got something to discuss with you in private. I’m sure our guests won’t mind; I’ve seen so little of you this weekend.”

“No, no,” he and Miss Potts murmured, despite Simmons’s pleading eyes asking him to come up with some excuse. Though Fitz was quickly becoming convinced that, for her, he would do almost anything, crossing the woman who hadn’t liked him since the first moment she saw him and stealing away her only child—again—was not yet on the list.

She inclined her head for thanks. “If you’ll excuse us then?”

Submitting to her mother’s attempts to link arms, Simmons looked over her shoulder desperately. He tried to look as sympathetic as possible. It was just her mother, after all; sooner or later they would need to talk with her anyway. She was next on the list, wasn’t she? Then, realizing the opportunity now presenting itself, he pulled out his notebook and waved it at her. Her eyes lit up with understanding, and she used her free hand to point to him and the ground. Message clearly received, he nodded agreement. He would stay here until she came back again.

Once they disappeared around the back of the house, he returned his attention to Miss Potts. She was watching him with one eyebrow sky-high, clearly working very hard to hold back her amusement. “Who needs words?” she asked.

“Everybody.” He frowned. “Well, I suppose not deaf people. Actually, they use words, too. So, yeah, everybody.”

“Not everybody,” Miss Potts said, her grin finally escaping. “You don’t mind if I read, do you?”

“No,” he said, “I’m, um, I’m just going to wait here.”

“Yes, I gathered. Good luck, Mr. Fitz.”

“With the murder?” he asked, not sure he was following.

In response, she simply opened her book. “That too.”


	13. Mrs. Simmons

Edith led the way to the billiard room, of all places, shutting the door behind her firmly and smoothing down her dress with a brisk, business-like pat. “There. Your father’s barricaded himself in the study or I’d have him in here too, but I suppose we may consider ourselves safe for a few minutes.”

“Safe from what?” Jemma asked, already weary.

“Interruptions.”

“I’m fairly confident everyone is occupied at the moment; there’s probably no need to guard the door.”

“Not everyone,” her mother said significantly, not budging.

With a sinking stomach, Jemma realised what—or more accurately _who—_ this was about. Honestly, it was astounding it had taken Edith this long to say anything. Unusual circumstances apparently had their benefits. Needing a minute to marshal her forces, Jemma played dumb. “Mr. Stark, you mean? He does seem rather a nuisance, but he’s safe as houses right now, mucking about with something in the gardener’s shed. That reminds me, Mother, he said he found it unlocked. You should speak to Bucket about that. It’s really a fire hazard and we’d hate for one of the village children to get in and hurt themselves playing with something they shouldn’t.”

“I certainly shall,” Edith said with a nod, “but don’t think you’ll distract me with the village children. I’m worried about _you_ , darling, and what you might be playing with that you shouldn’t.”

“He’s not—” Jemma started angrily, but stopped when her mother came over and laid a gentle hand on her arm. She stared at it, eyes wide, trying to remember the last time her mother had touched her at all, much less kindly. The harsh response caught in her throat. “I’m not playing with anything, Mother.”

“Don’t I know that? You’ve never played in your life. And so I am worried. Darling, don’t you think it’s unwise to spend so much time with a man who is not only your social inferior but under very serious examination in a murder? You know what Dot’s like; heaven knows what kind of tales she’ll be spinning as soon as she can. Have you considered your reputation at all?”

The warm glow Jemma felt at the beginning of Edith’s speech vanished like alcohol under heat. Concern for her safety she would accept, but her reputation wasn’t worth bothering about and hadn’t been since she had shown up to her eighteenth birthday party with rabbit’s blood all down her front (in her defense, it wasn’t her fault the apron leaked). Shaking Edith’s hand off, she crossed her arms and set her jaw. “Mr. Fitz isn’t going to murder me, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

 “Lord, no,” Edith waved off, “you can tell by looking at him he couldn’t kill a spider, much less a man. Unless he was ordered to do so, and obviously if Mr. Macpherson had wanted Mr. Stark killed he wouldn’t have volunteered to swap rooms, would he?”

A small light flicked on in her brain and she took a breath, remembering Miss Potts’s advice. _Tread carefully, Jemma_. “The police thought Mr. Fitz might have been in the room when that was decided, that I might have been mistaken about what time it was.”

Edith was already shaking her head. “There was no one in the room then but myself, Mr. Stark, Mr. Macpherson, and Dot. Your father disappeared as soon as the hand was done, as usual, and I believe the rest were out on the veranda, though I can’t confess I paid much attention at the time. And you”—she stopped to shoot daggers out her eyes—“had disappeared long before.”

“We did go out together in full view of everyone in the room,” Jemma pointed out.

“I thought you were retiring! You can’t blame a mother for not immediately assuming her carefully brought-up daughter intended to have a midnight liaison with a complete stranger.”

“Oh, it wasn’t like that!” _Midnight liaison_ sounded tawdry, dirty, like something to be ashamed of; it had nothing to do with the golden, almost spiritual experience that had been that conversation. They had just _talked_ , that was all, with passion and enthusiasm, flying hands and shining eyes and the certainty that here, at last, was someone who really understood. Oh no, there was nothing wrong about it. But she knew her mother would never, never understand, so she didn’t even try. Instead, crossing her arms petulantly, she said “Anyway it isn’t as though Roger hasn’t done worse.”

Edith sucked in a breath through her teeth and Jemma nodded in satisfaction, knowing that shot had been whang in the gold. It was common knowledge, though usually glossed over, that Roger and Dot’s connection dated to a Bacchanalian romp through the shrubbery at Jemma’s godfather’s house; less well known were the two car accidents that had resulted in Aunt Elizabeth’s diamond bracelets being quietly turned to paste. “Don’t speak to me about Roger. It was a mistake to ask him, but Uncle Morton was _so_ determined to give him a chance with David Weatherby.”

Uncle Morton had far too high an opinion of Roger’s potential, though of course one couldn’t say that. “I don’t think David Weatherby notices anything beyond himself and his wife, luckily for Roger. He’s been particularly hateful this weekend and I don’t know why.”

Her mother looked insulted, which was as close as she ever came to disbelieving. “Because of Dot, of course.”

“Dot?”

“Darling, you can’t have missed the shocking way she’s been throwing herself at Mr. Stark. It’s positively embarrassing. Though to be fair to him, he’s at least splitting his attentions evenly between Dot and Mrs. Weatherby. The flirtation last night was as thick as the leaves at Vallombrosa.”

Well that was interesting, particularly in connection with Miss Potts’s theory about motives. Filing it away, Jemma only said, “I hadn’t noticed.”

“No,” Edith said, stalking to the window and looking out onto the lawn, “silly me. You’ve been too busy all but promising yourself to a man likely headed for the dock.”

“Mother!”

“And even if he’s not guilty we know nothing about him—he could be a drug dealer or a white slaver or something really awful, like a gold-digger—” Struck by her own words, she closed her eyes and took on a pained expression. “Lord, Jemma, you haven’t told him about the money, have you?”

She felt herself go hot and cold, as she always did when her mother reminded her of the fact that all Sir Robert’s worldly goods would one day be hers. If left to her own devices, she’d fund a good laboratory and leave the rest to rot. “Of course not. You know I don’t care about it. And Mr. Fitz doesn’t even—” She cut herself off, biting back the fact that Fitz was now a hundred times more wealthy than she would ever be. They had agreed to keep that under their hats for the indefinite future. “He doesn’t have an ulterior motive. He’d rather not be here at all. He’s only been spending time with me for—”

“For?” her mother prompted as Jemma hastily remembered that murder investigations with the prime suspect were probably taboo.

“For science,” she finished lamely, fully aware of how it sounded.

Edith responded with a loud, unladylike snort. “Is _that_ what they’re calling it now? My, this generation is crude. Though I suppose there is a certain amount of experimentation and one always wants to replicate the results, so maybe it’s more accurate than one would have thought.”

“Mother, no!” If she could have stopped her ears to drown out the words she would have, but there was no unhearing them. “We’re just—I only want—we’re only going to be friends.”

“That’s how it always begins,” Edith said darkly. “Next thing you know you’ll be going off with him to dens of iniquity and then you’ll start wearing thick glasses and letting your complexion go and moving to _Bloomsbury_ , no doubt, and your father’s line will just die out because you can’t be bothered to have children…”

She wanted to deny everything, but she couldn’t. The glasses and the complexion and Bloomsbury, perhaps, but, oh Lord, she _had_ agreed to go with him to a jazz club. Agreed? Who was she fooling? She had suggested it herself. At the time it had seemed harmless, an easy way to look past the present tribulation, but now she stopped to think about it perhaps she had made a mistake. Dancing in a jazz club, after all…it was dark in those places. She had heard that all sorts of things went on in the shadows. Did girls ask men out for things like that, even to be kind? Was he reading something into it that she hadn’t meant? Because of course she hadn’t meant anything like that. Of course.

“And,” Edith went on relentlessly, “when I think of all the respectable men I’ve paraded before you, men of good family and breeding, it seems ridiculous that you decide you want to go after someone completely opposite to them in every single way. I suppose he makes up for his lack of prospects in other ways, hmm? Class and respectability are just _so_ intangible, aren’t they?”

“Oh, _please_ stop! I never even _dreamt_ …” But that was a lie. What about the ogling she had done last night, or her awareness of how soft his hair was on the stairs this morning, or the time she had spent in the Icehouse letting him yammer on just because she liked the way he said his ‘r’s? Unbidden, she began to imagine things she had no business thinking about, things that made her blush and stammer and would no doubt mortify Fitz if he knew about them. Blast those girls on her staircase passing round illicit copies of _Lady Chatterly’s Lover_! Curse her own rotten curiosity that pushed her to read it “merely for information”! Information was all well and good when it was only theoretical, but one flash of imagination and it became, suddenly and irrevocably, horribly practical.

“Jemma.” Her mother placed a hand on either of her upper arms and turned Jemma to face her. “Darling, you’re frightening me. You—you haven’t—”

“No!” she burst out, wrenching herself away. “It’s not like that. _He’s_ not like that. He’s…” Intriguing. Exciting. Sweet. Good.

Edith took advantage of her hesitation, leaping into the space. “What, hmm? You can’t say, can you? Because you don’t know him at all, not really. He could be anybody or anything, and there’s nobody here to vouch for him anymore.”

“I’ll vouch for him.” Jamming her hands in her pockets, she lifted her chin defiantly, trying to think what would impress her mother enough to show her what kind of person Fitz really was. “He went to Winchester and the University of Edinburgh and got a Double First. He loves his mother and respects his solicitor and carries notebooks instead of cigarettes and didn’t sneak any of Dad’s good scotch even after he had a terrible shock, and he’s never been anything other than a perfect gentleman to me. That’s a good deal more than you can say for Roger, isn’t it?”

There was no denying that, so Edith didn’t. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. I wish you’d stay away from him.”

“I believe I may choose my own friends,” she answered, slumping against the billiard table. “May we be done discussing it? I had another question.”

“Jemma, I—”

“ _Please_ , Mother.”

Edith sighed heavily. “What?”

“What time was it when you retired last evening?”

“Half-past-eleven,” she answered promptly, but with a suspicious look. “As we were held up at the beginning we couldn’t play the usual three rubbers before your father would begin complaining.”

“Did everyone go to bed at the same time?”

“No. Only Mr. Macpherson went up with me. Everyone else was still downstairs.”

So when Mr. Macpherson went into his room and locked the door, Miss Potts, Cousin Mary, and her mother were in bed, she and Fitz were in the Icehouse, and everyone else was downstairs. But had they always been? That was the question. Her fingers twitched, itching for one of Fitz’s notebooks to spin out the possibilities. There were several squares to fill up and several new questions to ask, and she wanted to get his opinion before going off half-cocked. The afternoon’s events had already proven that she shouldn’t attempt it on her own if they wanted to get good results. Without Fitz, she might still be stammering in front of Mr. Stark. Slightly pink from the memory of her ineptitude, she turned a brighter red thinking about the electrical charge that had coursed through her to kick-start her brain. If that innocent touch could have such an effect…no. Bad Jemma. “Are we finished here?” she asked her mother, who had set her face into the rock-hard smile that signified extreme disapproval.

“Are you going back to him?”

She sighed. “No. I don’t want to see him right now.” Better to wait until she was confident she could keep herself from staring at his hands and his eyes and the corner of his mouth.

“Then we can be done,” Edith said magnanimously.

Once out in the hall, it was all Jemma could do to keep from wringing her hands together. She had to stop this, and instantly; everyone knew bringing romance into these kinds of things only set them on a path to destruction. Except the Curies, but they were an anomaly. They were already good partners, better than she could have hoped for, and she would not let that be ruined by soppiness, no matter how blue his eyes were. She would put it out of her mind immediately. Mental strength was her forte, after all. She would splash some water on her face and wash it away.

But the doorknob to the washroom turned under her hand, and she jumped back to avoid being run into. “Cousin Mary! Goodness, you startled me.”

“Oh, dear, I am sorry.” The older woman fluttered her hands at Jemma, not quite touching her but brushing at her clothes and the air around her like a moth.

“No, it was my fault. I didn’t expect anyone to be here. I thought everyone was still being questioned.”

She bristled up, bird-liked in her offence. “One must refresh oneself sometime. Jemma, I don’t mean to pry, but are you feeling all right, dear? You look pale.”

Catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror, Jemma had to agree. “I’m all right. I’m just thinking.”

Cousin Mary clicked her tongue and actually did pat her arm, then. “I know, this dreadful trouble. I’m certain everything will come right in the end.”

Not if it’s left in the hands of the police, Jemma thought, smiling the smile that usually got people to leave her be. Cousin Mary didn’t take the hint, though, maintaining her grip on Jemma’s arm and lowering her voice. “Dear, I hate to be a nuisance, but are you quite sure it’s wise to be spending so much time with that man? I’m not suggesting he did it, though he does seem the obvious choice—”

“It wasn’t him,” she almost growled.

“Then it’s even more important you don’t give him the wrong idea.”

Letting out a slow breath, Jemma reminded herself that one had to be kinder to Cousin Mary than to other people. “Yes, Mother’s already informed me of the misinterpretations people are likely to put on it. But the only idea Mr. Fitz has is that I think he’s been dealt a rotten hand and would like to help him play it.”

“Are you sure? Only he’s rather handsome and you know you haven’t had much experience with men.”

“Of course I’m sure! That’s the only idea I want him to have. Men are so tiresome when they get goopy. I know we need them for reproduction but I believe I could do without them otherwise, don’t you?”

She spoke without thinking and more firmly than she felt, hoping to banish once and for all the traitorous thoughts popping up like moles across the even green lawn of her serenity. One look at Cousin Mary, though, reminded her why she seldom allowed anything to come flying from her mouth without proper review. Her cousin’s face had crumpled, tears forming in her eyes and trickling down the crevices made by long-dead smiles. Jemma felt sick. How could she have been such a beast to forget to whom she was speaking? “I’m sorry, Cousin Mary. I didn’t mean—”

“No, it’s fine,” she sniffled, drawing herself up and managing to make what little dignity she had heavy enough to crush Jemma. “I know you young girls don’t understand what it’s like to not have a choice about men, or make a choice and have it taken away from you. That’s all right. I hope you never do.”

“Cousin Mary—”

“No, no. No apologies needed. I’ve got to get back or the nice constable will think I’ve gone.”

She made her way across the hall, a sniffly, round-shouldered reproach. Jemma put her head against the doorjamb to sigh heavily before entering the washroom and locking the door behind her. Apparently it was time to seclude herself for the good of all. She needed to get herself under control again, or she would be no good to anybody.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An unabridged version of _Lady Chatterly's Lover_ was illicitly published in 1929, and it seemed to me not unlikely that a group of precocious girls could get their hands on a copy nearly ten years later. Of course, there's also the abridged version—either would be sufficiently embarrassing, I think!


	14. David Weatherby

Fitz sat with Miss Potts on the veranda until the movement of the sun left no shaded areas and she politely excused herself to go back inside. They hadn’t really talked, but he found himself not minding. For the first time since Sir Robert had thrown open the door of death that morning, he was able to think in a straight line: first, solve the murder; second, do whatever Mr. Biggs suggested about MI; third, take Simmons to Lola for dancing and jazz. Further than that he could not go, but he didn’t care; three steps of a plan was more than he had been able to manage on his own and in none of his panicked visions of the future had there been a happy ending. He allowed himself to imagine it: what songs they might play to best show her the wonder of jazz; her crinkle-nosed laugh when he inevitably tripped over her; the best table in the room for the times he had to leave her alone. The chaps would give him guff beyond belief, of course, as it wasn’t as though he made a habit of bring beautiful women to hear them. In fact, as they would point out, it had _never_ happened before. It was all right. He would make them see it wasn’t like that now, either. Girls like Jemma Simmons didn’t ask men like him out so it meant anything. She was just being kind. She was like that, he told himself, trying not to picture how the lights from the stage would reflect in her eyes.

After Miss Potts left him, Fitz transferred from the balustrade to her chair and pulled out his notebook, taking advantage of the sort-of-privacy to access their plan of attack. While neither Mr. Stark or Miss Potts had provided the hoped for information, they had suggested new lines of inquiry to follow up on.

_Who is Lark?_

_What happened during the poker game?_

_Roger’s debts?_

Tapping his pencil against his knee, he thought before writing:

                  _Why didn’t the gas affect more people?_

It was a poser, that. Fitz had never been in a house that didn’t suffer from drafts, and the age of Verinder Hall told him it was likely especially prone, despite its modern conveniences. There was no way for the gas to be completely contained to Uncle George’s room without any leakage. But no one else was dead, obviously, nor had anyone complained, so whatever effect it had had must have been minimal. Why?

Quickly, he sketched out the u-shape of the first story. On one side of Peacock, he knew, was the landing with the giant window, and the door on the other side led to the bathroom. His room was halfway down the hall with Miss Potts on the west side and Mr. Stark, apparently, on to the east. Mr. Stark they knew slept with his window open, which explained why he had escaped. Fitz did not, but he had left the door open a crack to the hall and that might have been enough. The guest in the corner room, though…what had saved them? Who was it, anyway?

“Oh, it’s you.”

Fitz looked up sharply to find David Weatherby standing over him, a paper under his arm and a scowl across his face. Not a scowl, really, but the annoyed disgust of a man who has just found something slimy on the bottom of his shoe. Fitz had suffered that look on more than one occasion, though never to this extent. Perhaps that’s what being suspected of murder did for you. Then, glancing down at the circled question mark over the corner room, he remembered: Hawk, the Weatherbys. Perfect opportunity for him to get some information while Simmons was doing the same with her mother. He swung his feet to the ground and half-rose with the deferential head-bob that had served him well at school. “Did you want this seat, sir? The glare’s not too bad on the page if you want to read.”

“Thank you, yes.” The words were just a matter of form as he pushed by Fitz and sat down with a thump, unfurling the paper to form an impassable wall. Fitz shifted from one foot to the other, drumming his fingers against his thigh. Politely, he ought to leave the man in peace. Realistically, he uncle was dead and finding Mr. Weatherby without his blonde accessory again could prove difficult. Politeness be hanged, or he might be. “I don’t blame you for wanting to sit outside. Fresh air seems especially precious today, don’t you think?”

A rustle of paper was his only response. He tried again.

“I don’t know how I’ll ever sleep with the window shut again. When I think that Mr. Macpherson might still be alive if he hadn’t been so set against night air, always saying it would make you sick…”

“Quite right too,” Weatherby said without looking up. “I’m sure I have a sore throat this morning. Sonia, being American, insists on it, but if I had my way we’d paint the sashes shut.”

“Lucky the Simmons didn’t,” he offered, and the other man grunted a reply. So that was that conversation done, then. Next box. Fitz took a minute to consider how to work around to it, sitting in Simmons’s chair and bouncing his leg up and down as he thought. The movement made the joints squeak. Glaring from the corner of his eye, Weatherby turned a page with a flourish.

That gave Fitz an idea. “You were speaking with Mr. Macpherson most of the night, weren’t you?”

“Mmph,” Weatherby said.

“Could you…” He intentionally hesitated, running a hand through his hair. “Only, his family will want to know all the details.” True enough. “If there’s anything you can tell me…?”

“There’s nothing. It was all politics—he had some very mistaken ideas about the defense budget I hope you don’t share—and then we started playing cards and we were rather concentrated. I think he was up at the end of the night, if that’s any consolation.”

Small favours, Fitz supposed, trying to look grateful. “And did he tell you why he and Stark switched? I think that’s the thing they’ll find unbelievable.”

“No. I knew nothing about that until today. I went directly to bed as soon as we were through, about 11:30 I think, and I understand it happened after that.”

X, Fitz mentally ticked in that box, and nodded sadly. “Such a dreadful mistake. Not that I want Mr. Stark dead, either, but—”

Weatherby’s face twisted suddenly, transforming him from a distinguished politician to something more closely resembling an angry ferret. Fitz started a little at the difference. “One day,” he hissed, “someone _will_ kill Mr. Stark, and that arrogant clown will probably deserve it.”

A new cool but amused, came from the direction of the lawn. “Be careful, Mr. Weatherby. The police are still out in full force.” Hands shoved into the pockets of his tweed jacket and hat resting on the back of his head, Sir Robert appeared far more relaxed than the master of a Murder House had any right to. It wasn’t until he spoke again that Fitz realised appearance was all it was. “You wouldn’t want to accidentally implicate yourself.”

Mr. Weatherby’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I understood that statements made under duress were inadmissible in court.”

Both eyebrows rose in what was clearly the original of Simmons’s disbelieving expression. “Goodness, is Mr. Fitz putting you under duress? Perhaps I’d better take him off your hands, then. Mr. Fitz, have you seen the pond?”

“Yes,” he said, squirming a little under Sir Robert’s steady gaze. “Sim—uh, _Miss_ Simmons showed me earlier.”

“It’s particularly nice this time of day,” Sir Robert said, checking his watch. “I really think you ought to see it. Let’s leave Mr. Weatherby to enjoy his paper without constraint.”

Fitz leapt to his feet, shoving his notebook in his pocket. He hadn’t forgotten the fact that he had taken Sir Robert’s daughter out to a locked room by themselves until one o’clock in the morning. Best not antagonise the man any further. They made for the pond at a brisk clip that forestalled any conversation and caused Fitz to question if the Simmons family had a ‘leisurely stroll” setting. Not that he minded. The silence left him time to think how to defend himself. If there even was a defense a wronged father would accept. Forget worrying about being charged with murder; he ought to be concerned with what Sir Robert would require to make amends. Did they still make you marry a girl to protect her reputation?

 _There could be worse things,_ a small, devilish part of him argued.

 _Stuff it_ , he told it fiercely.

They came to a stop at the edge of the pond, still without speaking. Leaning against a nearby tree and staring out over the water, Sir Robert didn’t seem inclined to start. Fitz followed his lead, feeling like someone had stuffed a handful of pebbles down his shirt. The silence dragged on. Fitz started to twitch. Sir Robert said nothing. The pond rippled as a breeze whipped over the water. A duck called.

Then there was a sound like the bleating of a thousand sheep, and it wasn’t until halfway through that Fitz understood that it was coming from his stupid mouth. “Sir Robert, I know you’re probably angry about Miss Simmons—er, not her, but what we did—not that we did anything, of course, except—I would never—she was kind enough to take an interest in some of my drawings, they’re just of gas masks, not anything inappropriate, and I needed some bigger paper, which she said she had in her lab—which, by the way sir, is incredible—so we went out but I would never do anything to disrespect her, she’s too wonderful for that, and I’m not that kind of man anyway, I swear to you. It was…only science.”

He came to a shuddering stop, knowing he had made a complete mess of it, and fought the impulse to bury his head in his hands. Was he a man or not? Could he come outright and say what he meant or couldn’t he? Going back over the disaster of a speech, he realised the answer was _not_ and _couldn’t_ , as he had left out one of the main points.

“Also, er, I didn’t murder anyone,” he added, cringing.

Sir Robert regarded him evenly for a moment, then looked back at the water. “Are you familiar with Hyde Park, Mr. Fitz?”

“Um,” Fitz said, trying to change tracks and not quite managing it. “In London?”

“When Jemma was a small girl,” he continued, “she would take pillboxes and bath salt jars and scrubbed-out tins down to the lake there to collect specimens.  I don’t know where she learned that term, but that’s what she called them. Once she managed to catch a tadpole and she kept a journal of its development until it hopped out of the bathroom and sent her mother’s bridge party into hysterics. That was about when Edith decided to send her away for school.”

Though he found the mental image of a tiny Simmons studiously observing pond scum utterly charming, Fitz couldn’t help but wonder where Sir Robert was headed with this.

“My Jemma,” he said with a fond smile, “we sent her to a fancy girls’ school and all she learned was French and German to be able to read scientific papers. All she has ever wanted to do is be a scientist.”

This seemed to require a response, so he said “She should, sir, she’s brilliant at it.”

Sir Robert looked briefly gratified. “She is, isn’t she?”

He nodded fervently. “She was telling me about her work with the poison gas compound; it sounds revolutionary. If it really works, she should bring it to MI. They’ll snatch it right up if they know what’s good for them—giving her full credit, of course.”

“Macpherson, pardon me for mentioning him, didn’t seem that interested last night.”

“Oh, well.” Fitz coughed. “They’ll be under new management now. The new administration will probably be very interested.” As a matter of fact, why hadn’t he thought of that before? If he was in charge of MI he could commission projects he thought important. He could put in a good word for her with the hiring people. Not that she would need _his_ recommendation to get a job; people would fall over themselves to have her working for them.

“I hope you’re right.” Sir Robert’s words brought Fitz back from his flight of fancy. “The world is different than it used to be, which is only a good thing for my girl. But I’m not fool enough to think that she won’t have a harder path than a man, even if she’s twice as good as he is.”

“No,” Fitz agreed regretfully. He knew what his path would have been without Uncle George’s money paving the way; how much harder to be excluded for the very fact of what one was? “But she’s _so_ good, sir, I think she’ll have it easier than most.”

“As long as nothing spoils it. For example, someone from a developer coming in to seduce her so he can steal her work.”

He recoiled as if Sir Robert had struck him across the face. “Sir, I—”

The other man continued as if he hadn’t said anything out of the ordinary and Fitz hadn’t spoken at all, his voice rolling over Fitz like the sound of a pipe organ on Easter. “I’m not saying you’re not a man of good character where women are concerned. If Jemma says you only talked science, I’m likely the only person here who’ll believe her. I know how she can get when she’s talking about what she loves. But that doesn’t mean you can’t still take advantage of her. If her work is as good as you say, maybe you’d like to take credit for yourself.”

“Sir, I would _never—”_

“You came in, the personal secretary to George Macpherson, only one of her heroes from the time she was a schoolgirl, and you’re clever and profess an interest in her pet project and look at her like she’s the next Madame Curie. My daughter isn’t easily taken in, but she’s been waiting for someone like you to come along her whole life. What kind of father would I be if I wasn’t concerned?”

It was a fair question and Fitz stammered out the first answer that came to mind: “A stupid one, sir.”

Sir Robert’s eyebrows disappeared into his hairline. “I beg your pardon?”

What’s done was done, he thought, and repeated himself. “Your daughter—I haven’t known her hardly any time at all, but I don’t have to to know how good and kind she is. It’s not often you meet someone like that who’s so smart, too. I can see why you would be worried that someone would try to take advantage of her, but it won’t be me, sir. She deserves all the credit she can scrape up. I’ll help her get it, if I can.”

Sir Robert turned away. “Why should I believe you?”

Fitz put his hand on the back of his neck. What was he supposed to say to _that_? ‘I swear on my father’s grave?’ ‘I can provide character references?’ ‘I was raised Presbyterian?’ So he said the only thing that felt true, not stopping to think about _why_ : “Because I think I’ve been waiting for someone like her my whole life, too.”

He expected an ironic guffaw, perhaps a scoff—goodness knows it sounded ridiculous, even to him—so when Sir Robert started _chuckling_ , of all things, Fitz didn’t quite know how to respond. He cleared his throat and stuffed his hands in his pockets, trying to regain some dignity. “So. Erm.”

Still rumbling, Sir Robert nodded gravely. “That’s fine, Mr. Fitz. I believe you.”

“You do?”

“I do.”

Sir Robert leaned back against the tree, sticking out his hand. Fitz took it gingerly, still not quite certain what had just happened. Caught by the firm grip, he was helpless to resist as the other man pulled him closer. “But if you’re a clever liar, I am extremely well connected in the legal profession. Remember, Mr. Fitz, Justice is blind but her servants are not.”

He gulped and nodded, all he could manage. Satisfied, Sir Robert released him. “Now, if you haven’t got anything more pressing, I’d like to hear what you’re working on that interested my daughter so much. I haven’t seen her light up like that for an age. At least since she got her second Bunsen apparatus.”

And Fitz was touched that Sir Robert would make that comparison.


	15. Between the Gongs

Inspector Ross, mindful of the white peakedness slowly creeping over Tompkins’s face, hurried a bit through the last interviews. Shutting the door behind Mary Farquhar, the last of the bunch, he dispatched the sergeant to find Mrs. Simmons and send her to see him. “And then, Tompkins, take the constable, what’s his name, and get a bite before you go to file your reports.”

Tompkins looked ready to cry. “Abernathy, sir. Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

While he waited for Mrs. Simmons, Ross leaned back in the chair to think. With a few exceptions aside, Ross had never interviewed a less helpful group of people. Usually in his line of work people were all too happy to share what they knew or, more often, guessed, but to a man this party had seen nothing, heard nothing, and thought nothing about what they hadn’t seen or heard. “I played cards and went straight to bed” was the general consensus, varied only by “I went to bed before cards began”. He sighed heavily. Not much ground for a man to stand on yet. And the autopsy results had been no help whatsoever. Pulling the note toward him, he read it again. Doctors’ technical language was harder to understand than French, but long practice had made him proficient. This one was fairly simple, fortunately, with none of the long words that meant “he got hit on the head”. Victim had died of carbon monoxide poisoning, inhaled through the lungs.  That bit wasn’t the issue; it was what came after that was proving difficult.

_After examining the stomach contents, I estimate the victim consumed a meal not more than four hours pre-mortem.  There was also a good quantity of alcohol present, but in my opinion there was not enough to impair the victim’s judgment, judging by his height, weight, and ancestry. When the body was examined rigor mortis was fully developed.  In a normal situation this would suggest that death occurred before 1400, but since the room was warm and considering the body temperature when examined, I would place time of death no later than half past midnight and probably before._

Which, given the information they had at present, unfortunately seemed to knock Mr. Fitz right out of the picture. Where that left the investigation, Ross didn’t know. He could only hope that the prints man would have something useful.

“You wanted to see me, Inspector?”

He set the note down hastily and was struck, as he had been before, by the way Mrs. Simmons had of making you feel like you were the one trespassing on her time. “Yes, ma’am. We’re all done with questioning for the day. I’d like to speak with your guests again, as a group, to answer any questions and explain what happens next. Can you arrange that for me?”

“Certainly, Inspector.” She checked her watch. “Everyone will be gathering at seven o’clock sharp for dinner. We can forgo cocktails for one evening, I suppose.”

As it was just then striking six, Ross preferred immediately and said so. Mrs. Simmons refused, citing the difficulty of gathering everyone up from hither and yon, and insisted it would be much better later. “I’m sure you must be wanting your supper, Inspector. It would be better for everyone if you just came back.”

Ross did want his supper. Unfortunately, instead of the nice roast Mrs. Ross usually did of a Saturday, he was going to have to settle for a dry-as-dust pie down the Green Dragon, and no thanks for that. He acquiesced with bad grace, all but slamming the door on his way out. And then, insult to injury, he wasn’t two steps down the path before he heard the dull heavy shimmer of a gong. If it was that ruddy easy, he thought, why couldn’t she have done it earlier and let a man eat his supper in peace?

Lying on her bed with an arm over her eyes, Jemma heard the gong and smiled in spite of herself. Come hell or high water, the dressing gong at Verinder Hall would be rung at six on the nose. Or was it? Swinging her legs to the floor, she sat up to verify the time on her watch with the dressing table clock: 6:04 p.m. exactly. So _that_ was one in the eye for the over-imaginative inspector.

Though that had never really been the problem, she admitted as she slowly made her way to her wardrobe to rifle through the gowns. If Ross refused to entertain the idea that anyone other than Fitz could be guilty, he would come up with justification whatever way he could. It wasn’t enough to prove him wrong; they had to prove something else right. She wrinkled her nose at the aubergine frock she was holding, disgruntled. Which, of course, _was_ the problem she had been musing for the last half-hour, with no conclusion. Perhaps if she hadn’t been so distracted by—well, by—by that other thing, she might have been more successful. _Damn_ Lady Chatterly.

Toilette complete, she drifted around her room aimlessly. Everyone would be dressing now, so she couldn’t do any more questioning; if she had some paper she could try to fill in the table, but Mother cleared out her desk on a regular basis. Then again, perhaps it would be better not to leave speculation like that lying around. She might bring that up to Fitz. Maybe when he was done making his call to Mr. Biggs—oh! She had told him to wait on the veranda and then abandoned him! Poor thing was probably still waiting there, wondering where she had gone, while she was up here mooning over how clearly he explained Planck’s constant—though of course she already knew about it. Flinging a wrap over her shoulders in case she needed it that night, she hurried downstairs, an apology on her tongue. See, she told herself, you’re already spoiling things because of this nonsense.

A quick peek in the study revealed only Cousin Mary, back towards the door, doing something covert by the armchairs. Jemma backed out slowly, making sure the hinges didn’t creak. She wasn’t quite ready to face her yet. That space occupied, Fitz would either be on the veranda or be making his way there shortly, so she might as well wait for him outside. And, while she was waiting, it couldn’t hurt to bring the Svedborg paper. Perhaps he would be interested in it as well. Paper in hand, she was about to walk through the drawing room to the French doors when the sound of suddenly raised voices inside made her jump back, heart beating.

“I can’t believe you’d say that to me! Your own wife! You must not trust me at all!”

Jemma recognised Mrs. Weatherby’s accent. Without that, she would have never guessed the pleading, conciliatory voice that answered her to belong to David Weatherby. “Angel, darling, this isn’t about me. I’m only asking you to think how it might look to the others.”

“You tried that line last night, but it won’t work with me. Who’s to say anything? Macpherson is dead, and the others were too drunk to remember.”

Clutching the paper, Jemma struggled momentarily with her ingrained belief that eavesdropping was bad form. But then, wasn’t letting an innocent man be suspected of murder even worse form? Absolutely. If anyone saw her, she could pretend to have just come.

“Dot wasn’t,” Mr. Weatherby said.

“Pooh! No one believes anything she tells them, even if it’s true. She’s too well known for her sour grapes.”

“All right, so we’re safe for last night. But what about next time? Stark’s the sort of man who presumes, and you know that I’m right. I don’t like that pet name he calls you. I don’t like the way he talks to you when he’s been drinking. And, darling, forgive me, but I don’t like the way you talk to him when _you’ve_ been drinking.”

“Me and Stark understand each other. You don’t. And you never will, because you’re just a big wet blanket.”

“Sonia!” Again the aggrieved tones, but quieter this time. Jemma found herself holding her breath to hear better. “It’s my constituents. You know even the _slightest_ hint of scandal can ruin everything. This murder is going to be difficult enough. I can’t bear to think of the papers.”

“That’s got nothing to do with me. You’re the one that rushed off last night and left yourself without an alibi. Where did you go, anyway?”

A box, a box! Jemma pressed her ear to the door, willing Weatherby to answer with all her might. Surely he wouldn’t lie to his wife! Weren’t marriages built on honest communication?

“Miss Simmons?”

She jumped and whipped her head around so quickly she felt the wrench in her trapezium, dropping Svedborg in the process. “Oh, Mrs. Pierce! It’s just you.”

“Yes, miss.” The housekeeper eyed her warily. “Is the door locked, miss? I’ve got my key.”

“No!” She answered quickly, giving a light laugh when Mrs. Pierce maintained her concerned expression. “I was just—er, I wanted to—” Stooping, she picked up the pamphlet and flourished it, hoping that would explain. “But it sounded like someone’s in there, and I didn’t want to barge in.”

Mrs. Pierce nodded, apparently satisfied. “Yes, I believe so. If you want to read you’d do better outside. Miss Farquhar’s in the study. I just saw her when I went to put out the papers.”

The evening papers, which would no doubt be screaming the story from every headline. David Weatherby might be dreading them, but Jemma wanted to get to them before anyone else. At the very least, she could warn Fitz if they had got hold of his unwanted inheritance. Before she did, though, Mrs. Pierce had reminded her of a question. “Mrs. Pierce, you know that Stark and Macpherson had switched, didn’t you? Did they send someone up to fix the baggage?”

“No, miss. Madam told me what had happened, but neither gentleman thought it mattered to have all the luggage changed right then. I believe Mr. Macpherson retrieved his things from Hummingbird and set Mr. Stark’s case in the hall. But I shouldn’t swear to that, miss. I don’t think anyone saw Mr. Macpherson go up.”

“Oh! I thought Mother said she went up with him.”

“Perhaps so, miss. Baines said he saw Mr. Macpherson going up as he locked the front door, but Madam may have been there as well.”

Baines locked up around midnight, Jemma knew, but her mother had said she went to bed at half-past eleven—a discrepancy worth nothing and trying to confirm. Golly, she needed to write this all down. Ho for the study, then, despite the fact that seeing Cousin Mary would only make her more ashamed of herself. Nothing for it. “Thanks, Mrs. Pierce. I think I’ll grab the paper before Dad destroys it doing the crossword.”

“Very good, miss.”

Taking a deep breath, she tucked Svedborg under her arm and plastered on a smile before swinging up the study door. “Good evening, Cousin Mary. Mrs. Pierce said the paper’s in here?”

The older woman hastily hid something behind her back. “Good evening. How nice you look. Yes, I believe it’s on the desk.”

Jemma smiled her thanks and headed to her father’s massive base of operations. As she did so, she managed to catch a glimpse of what Cousin Mary was trying to keep her from seeing: a tumblerful of her father’s special occasion scotch. On the one hand, Mary certainly knew better. On the other, Jemma couldn’t blame her for feeling a stiff drink was in order. Particularly not when she saw the headline:

MACPHERSON MURDERED

Industrialist Found Dead In Bed At Party

The article itself, accompanied by a very handsome cabinet portrait of Macpherson that was about twenty years old, was the very soul of discretion. And that was exactly the problem. Nothing, short of libel, was off-limits to journalists; the fact that they contented themselves with a list of the guests, a brief recitation of the facts, and the meaningless phrase “The police are following several clues and confidently expect to make an arrest” meant that they hadn’t been able to dig anything else out to even obliquely insinuate. Reading the article, Jemma became aware of how little information anyone really had. At least, she told herself as she folded up the paper and set it down, they hadn’t been able to get at Fitz. They still had a little time to work.

“Are you done with that?”

“What? Oh, yes.” She handed it over to Cousin Mary, who retreated to her chair near the decanter and fell silent. Jemma, opening Svedbog to a random place near the middle and pulling out a sheet of foolscap for “notes”, did the same.

_Bedtime_

_People on veranda_

_SW/TS?_

There, that looked innocuous enough. It also, she realized sadly, looked rather pathetic. How they would ever be able to spin this handful of facts and questions into something substantial was beyond her. She hoped Fitz had managed more. Maybe, if he came down in enough time, they could snatch a brief stroll in the flower beds to exchange information before dinner, so as to give them a better idea of what to go after tonight. And the gardens were so lovely at this time of day.

But the minutes ticked by with no appearance from Fitz, and she began to wonder if she should be worried. There was a murder on the loose, after all, and plenty of other ways to kill someone besides poison gas. He could be pushed in the pond or bashed over the head or given some rat poison or—stop. She was being silly. Fitz was a grown man, and a highly intelligent one, at that; he wouldn’t be stupid about being careful. Intelligent people didn’t do things like that. Even Tony Stark had said that a man who could make that torch wouldn’t be stupid enough to kill someone. It was rather impressive, that little torch. He had probably made it himself. He certainly appeared handy enough. After all, he had put her centrifuge back together this afternoon without even noticing, though she had been quite distracted watching him.

Catching her thoughts lingering over his nimble fingers again, she shook her head fiercely. That was enough of that! If she couldn’t be solving the murder, she had better read Svedborg. _There_ was a man worth pondering.

Fifteen minutes later the gong rang. He hadn’t come. Despite her logic-filled pep talk, an uneasy feeling rested in the pit of her stomach as she and Cousin Mary filtered through the door between the study and the already full drawing room. He had needed to call his solicitor, hadn’t he? Why wouldn’t he have at least _tried_ , unless something dreadful had happened? She scanned the room quickly, eyes darting over the Weatherbys close together on the couches and Roger shoving his way next to Dot until she saw him, partly hidden by the dependable bulk of her father. Seeing her at the same time, he leaned forward and smiled, his bright-blue eyes finding hers like a magnet.

_All right?_ he was asking.

_Just fine_ , she smiled back, pretending she didn’t notice her trembling hands or the way the plush chair seemed to rise up to meet her when she sat. Just relief, that was all.

Standing before the fireplace with his hands clasped behind him, Inspector Ross noted that Miss Simmons had apparently not taken his advice and hoped it wouldn’t come back to harm her before clearing his throat for attention. The already silent room grew still and attentive. “Now you’re all here,” he said, “I have a brief speech and then I will answer any questions I can for you all. First, let me caution you again not to talk to anyone about this, especially the papers. We will release information when necessary. Second, the inquest will probably be set for Tuesday, but you will be receiving summonses with the exact date tomorrow. Please don’t go anywhere until they have been delivered.”

“Even church?” Mary Farquhar asked, as if the question was an imposition.

Ross considered. Not a lot of harm they could get to there. And Tompkins sung in the choir; he could watch for suspicious activity. “Church would be acceptable, I suppose. I just mean, don’t try going up to Town.” David Weatherby began to protest. He continued as if he didn’t hear it. “Once you have the summons you are free to leave, of course, as long as you come back for the inquest. Just tomorrow. There, now, is there anything else?”

“I suppose you expect an arrest soon,” Dot Huntington-Smith said, taking a long pull at her cigarette. “At least, you must have some idea by now of who it was.”

Several heads in the room turned to Mr. Fitz, who stared straight at Ross as if he didn’t see them. Only his quickly tapping fingers betrayed his nerves. Ross looked just as steadily at the hussy who had asked the question. He didn’t care for her kind of woman at all—the cigarette smoking and paint he could get over, but the insouciant attitude toward a man who was only doing his duty as invested in him by the King grated every last nerve. “I really couldn’t say, miss. The case is proving more complicated than it first appeared.”

In the corner, Miss Simmons sat up sharply. Mr. Fitz’s hand stilled. Yes, he thought that would get them. Much as it complicated his life, he couldn’t pretend the facts were other than they were. Fortunately, the rest of the room didn’t pick up on the implication, no doubt assuming he referred to the apparent fact of the Wrong Corpse. Mr. Weatherby harrumphed, placing his hand over his wife’s protectively. “Yes, to that end, perhaps you can tell us what the police will be doing to guarantee our safety? I don’t wish to be indelicate, but it is a fact that someone here has already killed one person accidentally. I don’t much fancy being the second attempt.”

“Ah, yes.” Ross stroked his mustache, regretting this sharply. “I did mean to speak with you about that. If you like, I will post a constable in the house to serve as a deterrent.”

Miss Farquhar moaned. “Oh dear! We have to be watched, night and day, by the police? Aren’t we civilized people?”

“That won’t be necessary,” Stark cut in before Ross could attempt to assure her it was only for their protection. Standing, he patted his pocket with a wink. “I think we all know who the killer is really gunning for. I intend to gun him right back, if needed.”

Ross blessed the day he had learned to keep his feelings off his face. Mr. Stark had a gun. Of course. Naturally, being an American. It wasn’t against the law for him to keep a gun and Ross had no reason to seize it, but he couldn’t deny that a dangerous weapon in the hands of a man who admitted to drinking himself under the table on a regular basis was worrisome. Perhaps he had better send a man out. Though it wasn’t like he had any to spare, and that would send the guests into a frenzy. Better check with his superior first. “If you’d rather not, it doesn’t matter. It’s only for your comfort. Now, is that all?”

There were no responses, thankfully, and Ross let out a secret sigh of relief. “I’ll let you all get to your dinner, then. Do let me know if you’d like an officer to come out.”

The room began to move then, tentative motions still carefully controlled due to his presence.  The curse of being a police officer, he thought. The door from the study opened, disclosing the housekeeper, who bobbed a curtsey and said “If you please, madam, dinner is ready. And Mrs. Weatherby has a call.”

The blonde woman stopped on her way to the door, looking between the housekeeper and her husband. “Why, why should I have a call? Who is it?”

“They didn’t say, ma’am. They only asked for you and said something about a frock.”

 “Oh, that.” She waved a hand airily. “I know what that is. Tell them I’ll call them later.”

“Very good, ma’am.” Mrs. Pierce backed out of the room. Mrs. Simmons stood, drawing all eyes to herself.

“Thank you very much, Inspector, and we certainly will ring if we have anything else. You can show yourself out, I think?”

Thinking deeply, Ross nearly missed his cue. “Yes, thank you, Mrs. Simmons. I will be in touch. May I use the French doors?”

“Please do.”

He stepped out onto the veranda and swung the door closed behind him, pausing to watch the party inside. They weren’t doing much talking, but what little there was may as well have been happening a hundred miles away for all he could hear of it.  Miss Simmons brushed past her father; Mr. Fitz leaned forward to whisper something at her (brave man, Ross wouldn’t have wanted to get on Sir Robert’s bad side). Miss Huntington-Smith very pointedly took Stark’s arm, leaving Roger Simmons to stalk after her with a glower that could kill—who it was directed towards, Ross couldn’t tell. Last of all, the Weatherbys left together, she denying something irritably while he held her wrist, demanding. Ross watched until the door to the hall closed. It might be worth looking into the pair of them, though goodness knows he didn’t want to get an MP involved unnecessarily. Only, what kind of London dressmaker made a trunk call to a house party on a Saturday night?


	16. Saturday Night

The less said about that dinner the better, Jemma thought later. Her mother, trying every weapon in her arsenal, had rearranged the places at the table to sit Stark in Macpherson’s old chair in a dramatic irony she didn’t think anyone fully appreciated, leaving Fitz stranded between Edith and Cousin Mary. Listening distractedly to Stark’s epic tale of the time he raced from Los Angeles to Las Vegas in an over-heating Model T, Jemma tried to keep her eyes from straying to the other end of the table. She wasn’t ogling, though she really couldn’t help but notice that his tie was straighter than it had been last night (perhaps someone had helped him tie it? She would have if he had asked) and he had apparently tried to slick his curls back (jury was out on if that was a wise choice). It was a genuine scientific curiosity: was it actually possible to listen to an entire meal’s conversation between her mother and Cousin Mary without glazing over? She had never managed it, but from what she could see, Fitz’s answer was, surprisingly, yes. Perhaps, unlike her, he was managing to pump them for information. With Stark wrapped up in his story and Mr. Weatherby’s sullen glare all but daring anyone to speak to him, Jemma didn’t dare try.

As dinner dragged on, she began to wonder the programme for the rest of the evening. Usually Saturday night was spent listening to the latest records and dancing, but her mother would hardly think that appropriate tonight. Mah Jongg? More interminable bridge? More importantly, would there be an opportunity for her and Fitz to rendezvous and compare notes? Sneaking out under her mother’s eye would be unlikely, but there had to be a way. They would never get anywhere if they couldn’t talk.

Finally, Edith stood. “I thought we’d all go in together tonight—there’s supposed to be a rather good concert on the wireless this evening and it would be a pity for anyone to miss the beginning.”

Wireless was a good choice. Jemma felt for her mother, she really did—it couldn’t be easy to plan activities for a houseful of murder suspects. But at the other end of the table, Mrs. Weatherby shuddered dramatically. “Ugh, no. It’s such a lovely night I can’t bear to be trapped inside. Let’s go for a drive instead.”

“Capital idea, Lark!” Stark crowed, “I’d love to take you out for a spin in my car. Mr. Fitz did something to it that makes it go a full five miles per hour faster than it used to.”

Lark! Fitz and Jemma met each other’s eyes mid-air. There was one mystery solved, at least. Two, really, as David Weatherby’s scowl told Jemma what pet name he so disliked. Mindful of the chill that had suddenly descended over the room, Edith tried changing the subject. “What an unusual name, Mrs. Weatherby. I had thought your Christian name was Sonia?”

 “It is,” she said, tossing her golden head, “Lark’s just a silly thing. Mr. Stark thinks I look like someone he used to know named that.”

“She could sing like a nightingale,” Stark added, staring pensively into the air.

“I’m afraid all I can do is mimic. Now, about this ride?”

“Oh, but,” Cousin Mary bleated, “the inspector said we weren’t to go anywhere. Oughtn’t we stay in tonight?”

“Utter rot,” Dot said. “He told us not to go up to Town. This would hardly be that. It won’t even be dark for another hour at least. I think it’s a smashing idea; I’d love a ride in your car, Tony.”

“Do you think it would be all right, Sir Robert?” Miss Potts asked, turning to the end of the table.

Her father wiped his mouth hastily, no doubt to buy himself time to figure out what everyone was talking about. He had a habit of letting his attention wander when conversation wasn’t vital. “What’s that? Oh, I think it would be quite all right. As long as the party’s all together, I don’t think he could object.”

“Marvelous,” Stark said. “It’s settled then. I can seat four in my car. Mrs. Simmons, you have a four-seater too, I assume?”

“Yes, but I’m afraid it’s a closed car. Jemma has an open two-seater, though.”

“Splendid! There’s plenty of seats, then.”

Miss Potts shot him a look across the table. “That would be all right, Mrs. Simmons?”

Edith’s face didn’t move a millimeter. “Yes, of course. Whatever you like. I think I’ll stay here with Mary, though; I’m not fond of the car.”

Soon enough, the younger members of the party—plus Mr. Weatherby, who absolutely refused to let his wife out of his sight— were clumped around the three cars in the garage, trying to sort out who should sit where. Stark, obviously, would drive his own car; Mr. Weatherby was unanimously elected to drive the Simmons’s Austin, much to his chagrin. His protests only doubled when his wife claimed the front seat of the Daimler for herself, leaving Dot to sit in the backseat with either Roger or Miss Potts and Mr. Weatherby to chauffer around whoever was left in the closed car. Jemma, confident no one would argue if she suggested taking Fitz in her car, finally had a better idea. “Look,” she said, “why don’t you just take my car, and I’ll go back to the house? I’m frightfully exhausted.”

“That still leaves us with an extra person,” Dot pointed out, “unless you’re taking Mr. Fitz back with you?”

“There’s a rumble seat in the back, but he’s certainly welcome to come with me if he likes,” she said casually, turning to him.

He was already nodding. “I don’t really feel up to a jaunt. You understand.”

“Oh, yes. I think we understand perfectly.”

Jemma ignored that, not caring what Dot thought, and bade the party goodnight. Fitz ducked his head shyly, shoving his hands in his pockets as he followed after her. Once out of sight of the garage, she slowed enough to let him catch up. “Thank God,” he said as he did so, coming up on her right side, “I was having visions of sitting in the back seat of the car with your cousin or the front seat with Mr. Weatherby, and I don’t think either of them approves of me.”

“I wouldn’t have let that happen.” Turning to say something else, she forgot it entirely and had to laugh to cover her sudden speechlessness. She had gotten herself under control at dinner, managed to think of him only as her partner in investigation and possibly science the whole way to the garage, but all that good work disappeared instantly when faced with Fitz backed by a setting sun. The pink glow turned his hair a different color and brought the angles of his face into sharp relief, and the breeze blowing through the gardens sent clouds of whatever cologne he was wearing wafting over her. She felt suddenly lightheaded, and not in a pleasant way—at least, not only in a pleasant way. On second thought, perhaps this was a mistake. She ducked her head, staring down at her shoes, and tried to sound matter-of-fact. “Anyway, I don’t think it’s that they dislike you personally. They’re preoccupied with other things right now.”

“Girl troubles?” he asked wisely.

“How did you know?”

“I _am_ rather intelligent, and I _have_ got eyes. It’s not hard to tell when a man is at sea because of a girl.”

Hoping that skill didn’t extend to knowing when girls were at sea because of a man, Jemma didn’t respond.  Either cleverly picking up on her mood or completely ignoring it, he began a new topic of conversation. “You’ve got a very nice car.”

“Rosalind? Yes, she’s ducky. Dad gave her to me when I went up to Oxford.”

“About three years ago then?” He frowned. “I hope it wasn’t new. It shouldn’t be leaking like that if it’s only had three years’ use.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know anything about it,” she said apologetically. “All I do is drive her around.”

He stared ahead at something in the air, apparently thinking very hard. “Could be the oil; might be excess condensation from the boiler. How’s your suspension?”

“My what?”

“Your suspension. It keeps you from bumping in the road.”

“I don’t know. I suppose as good as anyone’s.”

“I could make it better,” he said, and launched into a detailed explanation of which she only understood the words “axel” and “bump” but found very impressive all the same. Something about “chassis” and suspension points” that he swore up and down would make it feel like she was floating in a cloud—simple, he said, but it sounded terribly clever. Listening to him, she felt again the thrill of excitement at innovation that had pervaded their conversation last night. He was so _intelligent_. Yes, the way his eyes lit up when he talked was extremely attractive, but not nearly as much as his brains. What was odd to her, though, was that his obviously superiour intelligence wasn’t the overriding impression one was left with when thinking about him. She had met many, many clever men in her time. Aside from her father, she had never met one so good.

His explanation done, they walked in a companionable silence, brushing up against each other every now and then but too deep in their own thoughts to realize it. Fitz, for the first time that day, let his mind wander. There would be time enough to talk over the murder when they reached the Icehouse; right now he could just enjoy being in the company of a person he didn’t have to interrogate, keep secrets from, or impress. It was easy to be with Simmons. Comfortable, even, almost like being alone. He hadn’t felt this at home with another person for a long time.

“So,” she said finally, “you held up much better at dinner than I would have done. What were you talking about all that time?”

“I wasn’t talking that much. At the beginning I tried to tell them how exciting your work is, but your mother gave me a look like I had dumped a rotting rat on her plate and your cousin nearly started crying, so that ended quickly.”

She groaned. “Oh, Fitz! The absolute worst people in the party to discuss that with.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Oh, Mother hates that I’m studying science and Cousin Mary is afraid of anything to do with chemicals or medicine. I don’t think she even puts aloe on a sunburn.”

“That explains the crying.”

“Yes, rather.”

“She lost someone in the War, didn’t she?” he asked, batting at a nearby shrub.

Stopping, she raised both eyebrows. “Not in the war proper; he had a dickey heart, I think. I’ve never heard the details. How did you know? She doesn’t tell anyone about that.”

He stared at the ground, sorry he had mentioned it. “Er…I didn’t _know_ , I just guessed. My, um, my mother talks a lot like she does—like she has to make space for herself because she’s afraid there isn’t any otherwise. And she’s not too keen on all the things MI does, either.” Taking a deep breath, he gave her the explanation she was waiting for: “My father was killed in the War. Lost his gas mask. That’s why—well, you know.”

“Yes, I know.” She was quiet for a moment, and he didn’t blame her. It wasn’t like it was an unusual story—seven hundred thousand men had been killed—but somehow one individual man often seemed harder to accept. When she finally spoke, her voice was heavy with sympathy. “Fitz, I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” He started walking again, not wanting to wallow in it any longer. “I was only two at the time, so I don’t remember him. I only know what my mother was like because he was gone.”

She matched him step for step, her voice taking on a lightness for which he was immeasurably grateful. “As she’s the best person you know, I think she must be very brave. I shudder to think what my mother would have been like without my father.”

He took the offered way out with relief. “Yeah, your father is a brick. He’s very proud of you, you know.”

“ _My_ father?” she asked, voice high. “When were you talking to my father?”

“Before dinner. He, um…” Perhaps it would be better not to tell her that Sir Robert had accused him of seduction and corporate intrigue. Then again, hadn’t he just been glad he didn’t have to keep secrets from her? “He was afraid that I was trying to steal your work. Which I’m not. I mean, I never would.”

She rolled her eyes at the suggestion and said “Of _course_ not” with perfect disdain. “But was that…all you talked about?”

“For nearly an hour? No. We talked about the Geneva Convention a bit, and my gas masks—”

“Which I still haven’t seen.”

“—we’ve had just a few things come up since then; I promise I’ll show you when we get a free moment—but we talked about you, mainly. He told me the story about the frogs in your mother’s bath.”

“Only one frog!” she protested, her eyes lighting up. “His name was Leonard, and he was a darling. There was no call for them to scream as they did.”

“I can’t say I blame them. I’d probably do the same if I was enjoying a perfectly good party and was suddenly attacked by a slimy amphibian.”

“He wasn’t slimy, he was just wet. Honestly, Fitz. I suppose you think snakes are slimy, too?”

They came to the Icehouse door and he began digging in his pocket for the key she gave him, which he had tucked in his jacket in case they found another chance to come out. “I never think about snakes if I can help it, and I hope they extend me the same courtesy.”

Laughing delightedly, she reached into her dress somewhere and pulled out a second key, slotting it neatly into the lock before he had a chance to figure out where she had hidden it in the folds of the filmy purple frock. “What?” she asked, mistaking his confusion. “You think I only have one key for this place? What if I got locked in? I must have three or four tucked away, in addition to the master key Dad makes me keep on the house ring.”

Obediently following her in, he flicked on the light by the door and closed it behind him as she went across to turn on the other lamps. “Why so many spares?”

Throwing off her wrap, she peeled off her gloves and removed her bracelets. He gulped a little at all the suddenly visible skin, tearing his eyes away from the curve of her shoulder and back to her face. “Oh, just in case. I excel at preparation. Shall we begin?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check Tumblr for a picture of Jemma's car—it's super cute and I totally want one!


	17. The Icehouse (Third Time's the Charm)

“Well,” he said.

“Well,” she agreed, resting her elbows on the table and putting her chin in her hand. “I thought we got hardly anything, but we can fill in more blanks than I expected. Shall we begin with Mr. Stark?”

He nodded, flipping the pencil in the air. “Opportunity, no; motive, possible; suspicious circs., why’d it take him so long to switch?”

“My thoughts exactly. Though you would know better than I do about the motive.”

“I don’t know anything,” he said, “my uncle was not as forthcoming as Mr. Stark apparently is. I know they were working together on something, but that’s all.”

“Leave motive blank, then. Let’s not put in anything we can’t put a name to.”

“All right.” He carefully filled in the information they knew for sure, then moved down to the next line. “Miss Potts.”

“Yes, question mark, none, no.”

Already writing _yes_ , he stopped and tapped the end of the pencil on the second square. “Hang on, you want me to put a question mark in for Miss Potts but not Mr. Stark? Why?”

She blinked up at him innocently. Golly, a man could get lost in those eyelashes. “She says she hasn’t got a motive, but she’s the only one who knew Mr. Stark before. If there’s anyone most likely to want to kill him, it would be her. We can’t discount that, Fitz.”

“I thought we believed her?”

“We do! But we have to be thorough, don’t we?”

Of course they did, or this wouldn’t work. There was a flaw in her statement, though. “If we’re being thorough, you can’t say Miss Potts is the only one who knew Mr. Stark before. She told us herself they had met the Weatherbys several times. Mr. Stark even has that odd pet name for Mrs. Weatherby; you think they don’t have any opportunity to have a reason to have a motive?”

Raising one eyebrow, she made a mouth that reminded him of his second-form Sunday School teacher. “That was an awfully convoluted sentence, Mr. Fitz. I’m not sure I followed. Do you mean, ‘they may have enough history with him to have a motive’?”

“Oh, now,” he began, drawing himself up to tick her off properly for daring to correct his grammar until he noticed the twinkle in her gaze as she bent back over the chart. Switching directions mid-stream, he said mock-indignantly, “at least I would be able to fit that into the box. Unlike some people I could mention in this room.”

“Touché.” She looked up at him, tucking her hair behind her ear to reveal an intriguing half-grin. “And I suppose you’re right about the Weatherbys, as well; there seems to be a shocking amount of familiarity between them if they’ve only met once or twice. But I still think we ought to put a question mark for Miss Potts. We can always rub it out again.”

Swayed by that smile, he did as directed. There wasn’t any harm in doing what she wanted, it was only pencil. “Now, Mr. Weatherby.”

“Yes, you spoke to him, didn’t you? That’s what ‘DW check’ meant?”

“Yes.” He had felt inordinately pleased with himself about that code. Being on good terms with Sir Robert didn’t necessarily mean the man needed to know _everything_. “He didn’t deign to talk much to me, but I did get that he didn’t know about the room switch and that he went straight to bed when they were done with cards. He said that was about 11:30.”

She nodded. “Yes, that was what Mother said—at least—”

“What?” Her forehead was crinkled; that meant she was thinking something.

Speaking slowly, she traced an invisible pattern on the brown paper. “Mother said that she and Mr. Macpherson went up at half past, but that everyone else was still downstairs. Perhaps Mr. Weatherby went up shortly after. But if so, why didn’t he know about the room switch?”

“Well, he wasn’t in the room.”

“No, only Dot was there, aside from my mother and Mr. Stark and Mr. Macpherson. At least, that’s what she told me. She said the rest were out on the veranda.”

“So then,” he said, pulling the chart towards him and marking fiercely, “the only people who knew about the exchange would have been those four. Everyone else would have thought it was Mr. Stark in the room.”

“Yes, but Fitz, there’s something else. I don’t think Mr. Weatherby _could_ have gone to bed when he said he did. I, um”—she stopped to squeeze her hands together, looking down at them shamefacedly—“I accidently overheard him and his wife arguing before dinner. She asked him where he had rushed off to, said that he had left himself without an alibi. If he was in the drawing room or on the veranda until he went to bed, then he would have an alibi, wouldn’t he? He must have been someplace else.”

He stared at the chart, thinking. _David Weatherby_ , though—the man was a well-respected MP of long standing; the newspapers carried every single one of his speeches and he was widely expected to gain a Cabinet position should his party regain power. It seemed ridiculous. But then, remembering the way the man’s face had changed when he spoke about Stark, Fitz found that it made more sense. “All right, yeah. If that’s true. When I was talking to him, he as good as said Stark deserved to be killed. Even your father thought it was imprudent.” 

“And he’s so protective of his wife. If he _did_ know Stark better than Miss Potts thought, if he _did_ disappear last night—”

“Too many ifs,” he said, shaking his head. “This isn’t facts, not yet.”

“No,” she said. “But it’s worth writing down, I think.”

As he wrote, she pushed herself back from the table and crossed her arms, the furrows returning to her forehead. Though he was trying to concentrate on the most concise way to phrase their speculations, the sight reminded him of a thought that had been tickling at the back of his mind. “Simmons, what were you thinking earlier, when we were talking to Miss Potts?”

He had thought he might have to clarify, but her expression cleared immediately. “Oh, that? I was thinking that she must be wrong about who would want to kill Mr. Stark. She said it could be anybody, that people want to kill him very quickly. But if it were something born in the heat of the moment he would have been strangled, or shot or stabbed or something, wouldn’t he? Making someone suffocate in their sleep is a premeditated method. The murderer had to plan it.”

Of course, she was right. He wondered that he hadn’t thought of it before. It must have taken time to stuff the vent so well, time to find all that fabric and rip it up and ensure it wouldn’t move. “How much time?” he wondered aloud, and wasn’t surprised that she followed right along.

“That’s the question, isn’t it? If it took forty-five minutes but Mr. Weatherby was only missing ten, that clears him. But if it took fifteen minutes and he was gone an hour…”

“So what we need to find out,” he said, running a hand through his hair, “is how long it would take. The only way I know how to find things like that out—”

The thought flashed from his mind to hers, and she nodded fervently. “An experiment. But how could we? We don’t know what the material was—unless—”

“—I saw it,” he finished, his eyes darting around the room as he tried to remember. “It was thick, brown, coarse, like a sack or—” Gaze falling on something he hadn’t noticed before, he rushed around the table and seized up the coverall she had hanging behind the door. “Very like this, actually.”

“Oh, Fitz!” Her mouth was a perfect **o**. “Fitz, the coveralls in the garden shed! They were missing, remember? And Mr. Stark said he found the door unlocked. Perhaps it wasn’t unlocked, it was broken. Could it have been that?”

Feeling the material between his hands, he closed his eyes and tried to picture it. “Yeah,” he said finally. “It could have been.”

She sprung a little on the balls of her feet. “Let’s use it then! I can get another one easily.”

“Yes, but what then? We’d have to get in there to try and stuff it ourselves. If we could sneak in—”

“Oh.” Chastened, she came to a stop. He found he missed her excitement, though there was still a faint glow left over that was nearly full compensation. “Well, it’ll be a crime scene now. We wouldn’t be allowed in.”

“Ross isn’t here now,” he suggested.

Her eyes grew very wide. “You mean break in? Oh, no, I don’t think—”

“Simmons, we’re already running a covert investigation against the direct instructions of the officer in charge. And it’s your house. And your father was a judge. I don’t really think you’ll be in any serious trouble.”

“But you might,” she said, not looking at him. “Perhaps we shouldn’t risk that.”

There was that, he supposed. Ross had said the case wasn’t as clear cut as they had first believed, but that didn’t mean he was completely safe from suspicion. Still, it didn’t seem like a good enough reason. Who would tell the police on them now? In the dark, with his torch—which, he realized, Tony Stark still had. It would have to wait for morning and the light. “I’m willing to risk it. But if you’d rather not, we can come up with another way.”

She still didn’t meet his eyes, concentrating on something by her left foot. He let her think. There were a few more squares they could fill in absolutely, so he came back around the table and did so as he waited, sneaking glances at her every now and again. The struggle played out over her face; she must have opened and shut her mouth half a dozen times. Not that he was staring at her mouth. “All right,” she said at last, voice shaking a little. “But in the morning. I’d like to ask my father. And if we do it early enough, no one will be awake to bother us.”

“How early is early?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Six?”

“Six?” he gaped, “is the sun even up at six?”

“Yes, of course,” she said, exasperated, “don’t you remember that’s why Mr. Stark wanted to switch rooms in the first place?”

“Six, then.” Only the sheer force of his willpower kept him from looking at his watch to calculate how much sleep that meant he would get. The prospect was daunting. But she had agreed to break into a crime scene to please him, so he supposed he could pull himself together enough to get up that early. Sighing, he turned the chart to show her. “Does this look right to you?”

She glanced over it quickly, her eyes flying back and forth across the page. Placing a finger somewhere in the middle, she said, “Here. In Motive in Roger’s line, add jealousy. I know you don’t know, but he’s not usually dreadful like this. Mother said—somewhere in the middle of her tirade—that Stark was flirting with Dot something fierce and it was making Roger—”

“God-awful?”

“Cross,” she amended, though she made a gesture with her hand to acknowledge his point. “I can’t imagine him being clever enough to work out the method and carry it out, certainly not as quickly as it must have happened, but you can’t deny that jealousy is a powerful motivator. ‘Crimes of passion’ isn’t a cliché for no reason.”

He nodded, trying to look wise to the ways of the world. “Not that I know from personal experience, but I understand that’s so.”

“You don’t?” She looked surprised, tucking her hair behind her ear and pressing her lips together. His heart sunk a little. Of course it was only natural that this pearl among women had experience with the wilder emotions. She was brilliant, beautiful, and kind; it was ridiculous to think she could have lived this long without some poor boob breaking his heart over her—or perhaps breaking her heart instead? The wretch, he thought, feeling anger rise up his esophagus. He’d like to smash his face in. “Lucky for you,” she continued, “you must not have as much competition at Edinburgh. Sometimes I think I’d kill someone if it meant there was more funding for my project.”

He let out a sigh of relief he didn’t know he’d been holding. “That would be embarrassing for your father.”

“Yes, which is one of the many reasons I’d never actually do it.” She sighed, suddenly thoughtful. “It’s awful, isn’t it? Your uncle is dead. Someone killed him. And all of these reasons we have why, they’re just silly, aren’t they? Money, getting your feelings hurt—I can’t imagine taking another person’s life for any of them.”

“But there aren’t good reasons to kill anyone. And people still do it all the time.”

“I don’t know,” she said, her chin suddenly firm. “If you hurt someone I loved enough, I might think killing you was justified.” His mouth must have dropped, because she laughed swiftly, banishing the determination. “Not _you_ , Fitz, don’t look like that. You never would do something like that, anyway. My mother says you wouldn’t kill a fly.”

He looked up at the ceiling and nodded, swallowing hard. “Not because they don’t deserve to die. I just don’t like the splat they make when you squash them.”      

She laughed again, sending worm-like squiggles through his belly. At least, he assumed it was her laugh doing it. If there had been something wrong with the food, probably everyone would be feeling it by now. Trying not to think of sick, he smiled and changed the subject. “Your, uh, your mother got a lot into your discussion, apparently. Did she give us anything helpful to fill in?”

Sobering instantly, she looked into the corner and bit her lip, obviously uncomfortable for reasons he didn’t understand. “Er, not much. Only the time, and who was in the room.”

“You were gone a long time.”

“Yes, she...had other things she wanted to talk about.” Each word was fragile, like she was lifting them out of cotton batting and praying they didn’t break when she set them down. He cocked his head, narrowing his eyes. She shifted uneasily under his gaze.

“About Roger?”

“Yes.”

“And me?”

“Oh, no!” she said with her mouth. Her guilty eyes said otherwise. Fitz looked away, too sorry to pretend he didn’t understand. He had never meant to let her in for this much trouble. Dot’s insinuations were bad enough, but it couldn’t be comfortable to come under fire from your own mother. Shuddering at the thought of the broadsides he was sure had been fired, he opened his mouth to apologise.

But she was already there, holding up a hand to stop him. “Don’t, Fitz. It’s nothing. I don’t mind what she says; _we_ know we aren’t doing anything wrong.”

“No,” he agreed. “Well, apart from the breaking-in, but technically we haven’t done that yet.”

She smiled. “Right. Anyway, she can’t really tell me who my friends are, can she? This is the twentieth century, after all.”

He thought she meant it as a joke, like his had been, but he couldn’t take it as one. Her words punched him smack in the gut, forcing all the air out of his body but leaving the reappearing worms. Not noticing his response, she continued quickly, “And anyway, if you’ve been talking with Dad he’ll know that you’re all right and he’ll make her understand, eventually. She’ll have to come around at one time or another. It would be terribly awkward otherwise.”

“Right,” he said, only half understanding. It was unessential information until he confirmed the foundational idea. “So, er, sorry—we’re friends, then?”

She broke off her ramble mid-word with a sharp “Oh!” Something fell over her face—hurt, maybe, or fear. Or maybe she was sorry she had mentioned it; maybe she didn’t mean it at all. Looking down at her hands, she twisted her fingers together until they nearly turned white. He wanted to kick himself for drawing attention to what he now knew must be a careless word. “Well, I rather thought—that is, I don’t commit sort-of crimes for just anybody—but not if—I mean, we can just be partners. If you like.”

A smile spread across his face heedless of anything he could do to stop it—not that he tried very hard. So she _did_ mean it. Jemma Simmons, the absolute most amazing girl he had ever met or was likely to ever meet, considered him her friend. “No, er,” he said, putting his hands on his hips and looking down to hide his idiotic grin. “No, friends is good. _And_ partners, of course. But, yeah. Friends.”

“Good,” she said, sounding as relieved as he felt. He glanced up to see and found that she was beaming as well, shining all over like he had given her the moon. But really, he thought, completely dazzled, knowing her was like knowing the entire galaxy. It was too bright for mere mortals to look upon.

They smiled at each other for another moment before they came simultaneously to the realization that they were staring, at which point they each chuckled and looked away. Fitz used the time to suck in his cheeks and attempt to school his features back to his usual half-grumpy expression. He had a gut feeling, though, that if he spent too much time around Jemma Simmons, his usual expression would slowly shift into one of utter wonder. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with that, the curtain falls on Saturday!
> 
> Thanks to Madalayna for both charts—seriously, I said it looked amazing and she STILL spent time making it better. She is a good egg. :)
> 
> Now, unfortunately, some bad news: there will not be a chapter posted on Friday. I do have several chapters written ahead but I haven't yet gotten to the end of a clue-block, so I'm going to need a little extra time to make sure those are ready to go out. There will absolutely be one posted next Monday and, with a little luck, the following Friday as well—it's just a mini-hiatus, I promise!


	18. Sunday Morning (Sir Robert & the Bathroom)

Jemma floated up through the pink haze of a very pleasant dream, slowly coming to herself but not yet willing to open her eyes. If she didn’t, perhaps she could slip back into it…she had been dreaming of a large and glorious lab of which she was the Head, a space she visited often when she slept. There was something different about it this time, though, that teased at the edges of her memory…something new and exciting. And something blue. Or maybe they were the same thing.

Unfortunately, analyzing the dream shut it off to her entirely; she was completely awake now. Reaching one arm out for her watch, she brought it up to her eyes. 5:17. Good old internal clock; it never let her down. She stretched in the light from the just dawning sun, taking a minute to relax and reflect before the day properly began. It looked to be a busy one. She and Fitz had plotted out a full schedule last night, adding three more questions to the List of Essential Data in addition to the three whose answers they were still not entirely confident in:

_4._ _Who was absent from the drawing room, and for how long?_

_5\. What time did Macpherson actually go to bed?_

_6\. Who knew that Stark was coming up and might have time to plan murder beforehand?_

They had done good work last night, she thought—efficient, clear, not too conclusive ahead of the facts. She was confident that they would continue to achieve valuable results, especially since they had only the more stupid members of the party left to question. Her father excepted, of course. With that thought, she tossed off her blankets and began dressing. If she wanted any time with her father before she met Mr. Fitz at the crime scene, she would have to hurry.

Ten minutes later, she rapped quietly at his door, waiting for her father’s gruff “who is it?” before poking her head in. “May I join you?”

In response, he pointed across the table to a second breakfast tray, complete with toast and egg and faintly steaming cereal. “I thought you might come,” he said, returning to his paper. “We haven’t seen much of each other this weekend.”

Shutting the door behind her, she crossed the bedroom, silent in slippers, and dropped a kiss on her father’s head before sitting down in front of the tray. “I’ve been busy. This looks marvelous.”

“Yes, busy. What, exactly, have you been so busy with?” He didn’t look at her when he spoke, but she recognized his “Prisoner-at-the-Bar” voice when she heard it. When she was small it had made her quake in her boots—still could, if it came to it—but as she had come for this express purpose she merely lifted the top of her egg unconcernedly.

“Investigating the murder with Fitz.” She thought the better of her word choice. “Mr. Fitz, I mean. What are the papers saying this morning?”

“Oh, more of the same, really, except the morning papers are much less hesitant to point the finger at Mr. Fitz.”

“Naturally.” She felt the now-familiar surge of anger and plunked a sugar in her tea with more force than was necessary. “Because he’s convenient and lower-class, not because he actually could have done it. It’s ridiculous. Even Mother agrees it’s impossible, and she still dragged me into the billiard room and read me the Riot Act.”

“I doubt it was about that entirely.”

Setting her tea down, she cleared her throat and reached for the toast to hide her quivering hands. “I suppose not. There were…some other points.”

“Yes,” he said, “I heard that lecture as well. Yesterday afternoon. And evening.”

She paused in buttering her toast, suddenly nervous. Her mother’s opinion she could, to some extent, slough off; if her father had objections, it was a far more serious matter. “You aren’t going to give it to me as well, are you?”

“As a matter of fact, I like Mr. Fitz. He seems clever and respectful, and he obviously has a high opinion of you—not higher than you deserve, of course.” She rolled her eyes, not so secretly pleased by her father’s praise. Which made his next words twice as surprising: “That doesn’t mean I approve of what you’re doing.”

She blinked, a bit taken aback. “We aren’t doing anything! Only science and murder.”

“That’s exactly what I mean.” Folding his newspaper, he fixed her with a stern gaze over the rims of his spectacles. “Dear girl, what are you thinking? A man was killed, the wrong man, remember, and the killer is stopping at this house. Are you even considering the danger? We’ve no idea what he might do if threatened.”

“Or she,” Jemma corrected. “There are several women without alibis at present.” Relenting under his frown, she added, “We’re being careful, Dad. We’re only collecting information very subtly so no one suspects. And putting it into a table, which is locked up in the Icehouse, and we’ve got the only keys.”

His eyebrows shot up. “You gave him a key? I hope not the master.”

“No, it was one of my spares.” But that was beside the point. “So the whole thing is safe as houses. And if we get anything firm we’ll take it directly to the police. _Please_ don’t ask us to stop.”

She wasn’t sure if the combination of her well-considered arguments and her pleading eyes would be enough to convince him. It usually was, but she had never asked his permission to investigate a murder before. Scraping butter over her toast, she left him alone until she heard him sigh. “You be careful. You’re the only daughter I’ve got.”

“We will be,” she promised, patting his hand. Then she plunged into the pocket of her skirt and pulled out one of Fitz’s little notebooks, which he had lent her after making her promise not to lose it. “That settled, perhaps you could answer a few questions?”

“If that’s your strategy, I’m withdrawing my permission,” he said, looking startled.

“Only for you.” She consulted the list of questions they had compiled last night. “Oh, first, we haven’t got your alibi. It’s only to be thorough, but perhaps you’d better tell us.”

That amused him, but he clasped his hands together obediently. “Came down to dinner. Was with the party all evening except when I met you in the hall. Left around eleven to read _Blackwell’s_ in the study. Went to bed around 11:30. Will that do?”

“You were alone in the study?”

“Baines brought me a nightcap. You can verify with him.”

“And when you left the room, was everyone else still in there?”

He considered, drinking some tea as he thought. “Mr. and Mrs. Weatherby had gone out to the terrace, I think, and Roger wasn’t in the room. I believe he went out for a smoke. The gardens were rather ashy the next morning. Everyone else was there.”

She wrote it down sketchily, just enough to remember, and moved on to the next item. “Do you know how Mother put together the party? Was there some reason she asked both Mr. Weatherby and Mr.—”

He was already shaking his head. “You know we never discuss these things. You’ll have to ask her.”

Jemma sighed, having expected that answer but hoped for another. No help for it, then. But that she would have to manage by herself; her mother would no doubt refuse to speak if Fitz was there. She glanced down at the list for the next item ( _ask permission to go into Peacock Suite_ ) and promptly ruled it out. Her father was already worried about the investigation; no need to make him acquainted with all the details. She could just borrow the Peacock key from the master ring. “Last thing, then. A favour.”

“Why do I get the impression it’s a rather large one?”

“It is. Could you possibly distract Mr. Weatherby so Fitz and I can speak to his wife? She’ll be a little more forthcoming if he’s not right there, we think.”

“You couldn’t have asked for my firstborn child instead?” He picked up his paper and smiled at her teasingly exasperated expression. “All right, darling daughter. Directly after breakfast.”

She took a final bite of toast and stood, pocketing the notebook. “Better make it after lunch, please, Dad. We’ve got something going on this morning. As a matter of fact”—she glanced hurriedly at her watch—“I’m already late. Not that it will matter. Fitz isn’t a morning person like you and I.”

She did not see her father’s eyes grow thoughtful, and she did not understand the tenderness in his voice when he spoke again just as she was about to go out.

“Gem.”

Turning at the sound of their private name, she raised her eyebrows questioningly.

“You call him Fitz. What does he call you?”

“Simmons,” she said, not sure why he was asking. “As I asked him to. That’s how partners refer to each other.”

In response he only smiled and opened the paper. “See you at lunch.”

After a brief stop in her room to retrieve the strips of coverall they had cut up last night and a quick flit down the stairs to retrieve the master key ring from its secret compartment in her father’s desk, she ran back upstairs only to pause in the hallway, shifting from one foot to the other in indecision. Ought she go try and wake him? A quiet knock at the door probably wouldn’t disturb anyone. Then again, if she succeeded he would open the door fresh out of bed, and who really knew—the heat rising in her face at the mental picture convinced her that was a step too far, even for this odd partnership they found themselves in. Perhaps _especially_ for this odd partnership they found themselves in. Instead, she turned on her heel and looked both directions before carefully unlocking the Peacock Suite’s door and sliding in. She hadn’t been in since everything happened and she was surprised by how normal it appeared, only the rumpled covers left to signify that someone had gone to their eternal rest here only last night.

The bathroom door stood open, a glowing square resting on the tiles where the sunlight fell. Wondering if they would be able to see into the boiler cupboard, she walked in without turning on the light and nearly tripped over Fitz’s still form, sprawled across the floor next to the bathtub. For some reason, the silly man had apparently decided to camp out on the bathroom floor fully clothed, which she couldn’t imagine being comfortable but didn’t seem to bother him. He was totally relaxed and breathing deeply, clutching a pillow to his chest with one arm while his head rested peacefully on the other. Two slippers kicked out from under the thin blanket, shabby on the top and holey on the bottom. In sleep, he looked even younger than usual, only the slight dusting of scruff on his jaw to betray that he was out of his teens. Jemma caught her breath, feeling as though her heart had suddenly ballooned in her chest and shoved everything else aside. Well, that was a new sensation—not the excitement of their conversations nor the fluttering nerves that accompanied the awareness of him as a physical being, but a strong warmth that threatened to pour out of her in decidedly un-English ways. She thought for a minute, trying to put a name to the feeling and failing. She would let it go, then. No doubt it would come to her when she wasn’t thinking about it. “Fitz,” she called quietly, stuffing her hands in her pockets so she wouldn’t give into the impulse to brush his hair from his face. “Fitz, it’s time to wake up.”

He stirred and groaned without opening his eyes. She tried again a little more loudly, mindful of whomever was sleeping on the other side of the wall. “Fitz. Fitz, time’s escaping rapidly. We’ve got to get going.”

Burying his face in the crook of his elbow, he shook his head. “ ’s too early.”

Goodness, could you always cut his brogue with a knife? It was thick enough to smear on your face like a lotion. “That’s the whole point, isn’t it? It’s nearly ten after six.”

“It’s too blasted early to be so punctual.”

“It’s never too early for punctuality!” she said brightly, and he groaned again and heaved himself into a sitting position. A red crease ran endearingly across his right cheek from his ear to the corner of his mouth.

“I may have to rethink our friendship if you’re always so bally cheerful at such ungodly hours.”

“Granted, I’m not the most faithful communicant, but I believe God is identified with light. This would be the _most_ godly hour, then.”

He left off rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands long enough to shoot her a haggard but deadly glare. “We’re never doing this again.”

“You mean sneak into a crime scene to experiment with how long it takes to kill someone? Don’t get accused of murder again, and we won’t have to.”

Yawning, he pulled himself up with the edge of the bathtub and turned around to perch on it. “What did I say, Simmons? It’s too early to be glib.”

“Aw,” she said, “is someone a bit of a grumpy-boots in the morning?”

“You try waking up every hour on the hour and finishing out the night on a cold, hard floor so you don’t miss your appointment and we’ll see how daisy-fresh you manage to be.” He peered up through his eyelashes, a quick, appraising glance that made her hands get suddenly warm. “Though you look all right now. You’ve, um, done something different with your hair?”

She pulled the tail over her shoulder and played with it nervously. “It’s quicker this way. I’ll put it up for real later.”

“It’s, um—” He stopped, looked away, looked back, started again. “If you could get it all up, it might be better…it’s rather dirty in the cupboard.”

“Is it?” she asked, not because she cared but because it made a convenient cover as she tried to figure out what he had been going to say.

“Filthy. I don’t think much of your maids.” Standing, he put one hand in his pocket and gestured to the boiler with the other. “Shall we?”

She set the bundle on the floor and pulled the ribbon out of her hair, trying to wrap it tightly enough around her hastily gathered bun to keep most of it off her face as she came to kneel beside him in front of the open cupboard. Their two forms together blocked out most of the light from behind them, but the light coming through the now-clear ventilation shaft provided enough to see by. It was, indeed, rather disgusting in here; dust lay thick enough on the wooden floor to show imprints of large, booted feet. Good thing they had decided to wear gloves. She looked up at the ventilation shaft, blinking in the light. Hair was already in her eyes. “I’ll go first, shall I? Since you saw how it was done before. It will make for a more true test.”

“Half a mo’.” He leaned back and snagged the blanket off the floor, handing it to her with a one-handed wave around his head. “It might keep some of it off.”

Touched by his concern, she pulled on her gloves and swaddled herself in the blanket like an opera cape, then stepped inside. Immediately, she saw a problem. Though the bottom slats of the vent were at eye level, the top ones were over her head. She was going to need both hands to balance and stuff. “Keep the strips for me. Pretend I have them in a sack of some kind.”

“All right,” he said, voice sounding far more distant than she knew it was. “Say when you need them. I’m starting the time now.”

She leaned back, trying to get a better understanding of how the vent worked to plan her attack. The spaces between the wide metal slats would be difficult to block out entirely without the fabric slipping out, unless there was something on the outside to keep them in? Squeezing around the boiler, she reached up to poke her fingers through. Fleetingly grateful this had been dusted yesterday, she drew her fingers towards her along the slat, feeling nothing but a slight breeze until she bumped up against the end sooner than she expected. A rough, scratchy patch of _something_ made her draw her hand back in a hurry. “Fitz! There’s something in here.”

“What?” he asked, standing quickly and peering over her head. “Can you see what it is?”

“Not with you in my light, I can’t!” He stepped back, hands up before him, and she got up on tiptoe and leaned her elbows against the back wall to be able to use both hands. Carefully, slowly, she tugged and pulled and pried until it was in her hand, torn and threadbare and much worse for the wear, but unmistakable. The tiny square of cloth fit right into her gloved palm, and their heads nearly touched as they bent over it.

“The police must have missed it,” he breathed.

She felt a shiver run over her. “It’s not unlikely; it was caught on something, the corner of a slat, maybe? Look, the edge is torn.”

Fitz dug in his pocket and pulled out one of the new coverall strips, laying it over her hand to compare. “They look the same to me.”

“A little different colour, perhaps, but very similar, yes.”

“What are we going to do with it?”

“Keep it, of course.”

“Yeah, obviously, but I can’t just shove it in my pocket, can I? That would contaminate the specimen.”

She raised both eyebrows. “That was awfully physical science-y of you.”

“Common sense,” he retorted, “just because I don’t like blood doesn’t mean I don’t know how to keep things clean. Have you got, I don’t know, a sterile jar?”

“Yes, of course. Just under the bathroom sink.” She meant her sarcasm to be withering. His exasperated face told her she had succeeded. “Oh, I don’t know, Fitz. Put it on a bit of tissue on the sink. That’s probably as sterile as anything.”

He did as directed, then consulted his watch. “We’ll have to start the time over. Ready to go again?”

It took her nearly ten minutes to get the vent stuffed to what they agreed was a reasonable density; Fitz, profiting by her example but hampered by his larger hands and body, took closer to fifteen. When added to the twenty minutes they had spent preparing the strips last night, they were looking at a Murder Time of half-an-hour to forty-five minutes.

“That seems like an awfully long time,” Fitz said glumly as they stared at the notebook between them, each holding a corner. “How could you just disappear for that long?”

She tapped the page with her free hand.  “No, but look, Fitz, it’s not as long as all that. My father said the games ended at eleven, but Mother didn’t go to bed until half-past and they _both_ said that there were several people out of the room at that point. Whether or not they disappeared is another matter, but they did have time.”

“Yeah, I suppose.” He rubbed at his chin thoughtfully, leaving a long grey streak through the morning shadow. She bit her lip, trying not to laugh. “What?”

“You’ve made a mess of yourself. You’d better wash it off before anyone sees.”

Stomping to the sink, he rolled up his sleeves and began splashing water on his face and up into his hair, grumbling all the while. Concentrated on the new evidence, she didn’t pay him any attention until he turned around, dripping, to ask for her approval. “All right now?”

She gulped. If she had thought the rolled-up sleeves were a problem, his appearance now amounted to indecent exposure: to better wash his face, he had opened the top two buttons on his shirt, revealing the hollow of his neck and the point of his collarbones. Water dripped from his curls onto his nose and rolled down the curve of his cheek. His eyebrows, raised expectantly, were disarranged; his lips, at first pressed together in an irritated line, parted as he waited for her response. “Well?”

“Yes,” she finally managed to choke out, cursing herself for how strangled she sounded. “You look fine.”

His forehead crinkled. “Are you all right, Simmons? You sound strange.”

“Just a bit of dust.” She coughed, hoping to add verisimilitude to her ruse. It backfired horribly, as she was apparently too convincing and the concern spread from his forehead to his eyes, making them unbearably blue.

“Here, some water,” he said, fumbling to find the glass and fill it, then sloshing it all over her in his haste to hand it over. They both stared down at the wet spot spreading across her chest. “Sorry, sorry!”

“Fitz, it’s fine—”

“Oh, it’s in your hair—no, no, I’ve got it.” Grabbing one corner of the blanket they had let drop to the floor, he dabbed at the worst of it with one hand while using the other to turn her towards the light, heedless of how close he was moving to her. She should stop him, she knew she should, but she seemed to be incapable of doing so; the most she could manage was to put one hand on each of his upper arms, trying to keep some distance. It didn’t help. Every inch of her was very aware of him: the surprising muscles under her hands, his encompassing smell, his frown of concentration, the very few inches he had on her even in slippers, the oddly familiar shade of his eyes. She cleared her throat again, making him stop his ministrations to look down at her. Suddenly dazed, she didn’t even recognise the deep voice that spoke as her own. “This is an old blouse, anyway.”

 “Oh! Excuse me!”

They jerked away from each other, spinning around as one to see Sonia Weatherby standing wide-eyed in the second doorway. Jemma was suddenly aware of the hair tumbling over her shoulders, the still undone buttons of Fitz’s shirt, the fact that it was only just now seven o’clock in the morning. She could almost feel the embarrassed heat radiating off of Fitz. Mrs. Weatherby gave them a knowing smile and mimicked locking her lips, then disappeared back into her bedroom without another word.

Neither of them said anything; neither of them moved. Jemma didn’t even know how to begin.

“We’d better get to breakfast,” he said finally, a strange twist in his voice.  “I’m starving.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regular schedule will resume, at least for a few weeks! Isn't it nice when your life lets you prioritize fanfiction?


	19. Sunday Breakfast

Alone in his room, Fitz spent a good ten minutes trying to get his hands to stop shaking long enough to shave. It would be convenient to blame his shallow breath and quivering knees on being startled and embarrassed, but both emotions were familiar and had never been accompanied by these physical responses. He wasn’t just unsettled; he was shaken to his core. And he knew exactly what had done it, too: hair like silk and a sun-lit pair of honey-amber eyes and a fog of lavender air. Even then, he might have managed to keep it together if she hadn’t touched him too, sending out jolts of electricity that travelled straight to his heart and brought his first impressions back to lumbering life. Her intelligence and kindness and loyalty were so overwhelming that he had somehow forgotten how beautiful she was. Damn, damn, damn, _damn_. He scowled fiercely at his reflection as he scraped the beaver brush across his face, mentally listing all the reasons this was a highly inconvenient development: (a) Mrs. Weatherby’s sudden appearance; (b) everything he was going to have to do for MI; (c) the fact that she was most decidedly in a different class in every way that mattered as well as the ones that didn’t; (d) the sure knowledge that there was no possibility a girl like that would even think about a man like him; (e) the not-insignificant fact of the murder. He didn’t have energy to waste fighting off a doomed love affair. Not that that was what this was. Not yet. He couldn’t let it be.

Toilette completed and tissue carefully blotting the one or two spots where he got distracted, he took a deep breath before heading downstairs to breakfast. That his brief moment of weakness could not affect his future behaviour was certain; he had steeled himself to that as he tried to do something with his hair. But what if she—not that she would reciprocate, but perhaps she would feel awkward—and then there was the natural embarrassment of being caught in what could appear to be a compromising position by the bosom friend of the house’s biggest gossip. If he had wrecked everything he would never forgive himself, ever. The sick feeling in his stomach at the thought nearly made him lose his appetite.

She looked up when he opened the door, her hair now neatly pinned and a fresh white blouse in place of the one he had ruined. “What would have been really helpful is if there was such a thing as an instrument to measure the amount of carbon monoxide in the air when they first got there. With that information, they could use the rate of leakage to calculate how long the vent had been plugged.”

Her thoughtful expression as she popped a strawberry in her mouth was exactly the same one he had been privileged to learn yesterday and the day before. It was all he could do not to sag against the door in relief. Instead, he made his way over to the buffet and began piling his plate with scrambled egg. “They being the police, I assume? There _is_ a rudimentary system of detecting carbon monoxide, but it doesn’t measure it. It only changes colour if the gas is present.”

“But that’s not very helpful, is it? We need something to measure. I was thinking about it while I was waiting for you. Do you think you could build a device to measure mass, since carbon monoxide is heavier than the oxygen mixture that makes up common air?”

Carefully balancing his plate in one hand and his tea in the other, he made for the chair she shoved out for him and thought. By the time he had settled himself next to her, he had a bit of an idea; by the time he had eaten his third piece of toast, he had a drawing; by the time she was ringing for more hot water to refill the teapot, he had a blueprint for a carbon monoxide detector and a relieved conviction that everything was going to be fine. A girl who felt uncomfortable around a man wouldn’t turn her chair to more fully face him, wouldn’t snatch his pencil to scribble in the margins of his notebook or gently needle him about how much sugar he put in his tea. Apparently, whatever had happened upstairs had only affected him. Thank goodness, he told himself, shoving aside the evil imp that wanted to be sorry.

As she poured out their fifth or six cups, he looked at his watch and was surprised to see that it was nearly ten o’clock. “Where is everyone?” he asked, suddenly concerned. “I didn’t miss them coming in?”

“No.” She took a sip of tea and snagged a toast crust off his plate. “Mother and Cousin Mary went to church and my father always eats in his room on Sunday. I wouldn’t expect down Dot or Roger or, probably, Mr. Stark. Though it does seem odd that Miss Potts isn’t here; I rather thought she was an early riser.”

“Mr. Weatherby, too. I would have thought.”

Her eyes darkened, and he could hear the _pop_ of their pleasant time bursting. Mr. Weatherby _did_ seem an early riser, but he wouldn’t have guessed _Mrs._ Weatherby to be one. And yet, there she had been. After a minute, Simmons agreed quietly, looking down at the table and pleating up the cloth between her fingers. He toyed with his fork and cleared his throat. The silence stretched between them, neither bold enough to broach the subject his words suggested. But it would have to be talked about sometime, wouldn’t it? Not, that is, not _all_ of it. But it had been significant in more ways than one. “Erm,” he said finally, choking a little, “erm. We, uh…about what happened upstairs—”

“Yes?” she asked, still concentrated on the tablecloth fan.

“I was just wondering, why didn’t you tell me that the Weatherbys had a door into the bathroom? Because that makes a deal of difference for the alibis, doesn’t it? What does it matter what time they went to bed if—”

Her eyebrows shot up and her face relaxed. He wondered what she had expected him to say. “Oh! Oh, I didn’t even think of that. I suppose that’s true, though.”

“Right. So it’s a bit essential, and I didn’t know.”

“No, Fitz, I mean, I didn’t even think of them having a door. If Mother doesn’t put a pair in Peacock and Hawk, she locks the Hawk door and takes away the key so there aren’t any…embarrassing displays.” She turned just the slightest bit pink. He did not find it charming at all. “The door should have been as good as a wall. Unless the police did it, I can’t imagine how it came to be unlocked.” Pressing her lips together, she paused before saying all in a rush, “Of course, if I had known, I never would have suggested—I certainly didn’t mean—”

Oh, Lord, she was going to talk about it. That must be avoided at all costs. He put out his hands to stop her. “No, Simmons, it’s fine, really.”

“I’m not ashamed of it but you must admit it does look bad–”

“Not any worse than anything else this weekend—”

“I shouldn’t have—”

“ _I_ shouldn’t have—”

“If Dot gets hold of it—”

“—again, not worse than being accused of murder—“

“—which hasn’t happened yet and won’t, especially since we have so many other suspects—”

“—exactly, and where are they? Shouldn’t we be questioning them?”

She stopped in the middle of another sentence, cocking her head to one side. He gave himself an inward clap on the back for getting her off the subject without embarrassing himself completely. “That’s true as well. If they haven’t come for breakfast yet, I don’t suppose they will.  Shall we decamp to the drawing room? That’s the most likely place, I think.”

He agreed without thinking—anything to get them away from this particular topic—snatching up his notebook with one hand and his teacup with the other. “You don’t know this about me,” he explained to her skeptical eyebrow, “but I’m nearly always hungry. The fact that I didn’t eat yesterday is a very serious sign that something is wrong.”

“Well then,” she said, leading the way into the hall, “it’s lucky you had the toast rack all to yourself. May I just remind you that lunch will be in about an hour-and-a-half?”

“Good, I’m ravenous. But if I’m sitting between your mother and your cousin again, I won’t be able to eat anything anyway. Their glares will turn the food to rocks on my plate.”

She laughed delightedly, her smile scrunching her nose, then clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, I’d better be quiet. It doesn’t feel quite right to laugh when everything’s so dreadful, does it?”

Somehow, Fitz didn’t feel that everything was that dreadful, but he agreed anyway, holding open the drawing room door for her. She smiled up at him as she passed, then turned it to the woman curled up in the corner of one of the sofas. “Good morning, Miss Potts. As you’re alive I assume you had a good night?”

“I can’t complain.” She put a finger in her book and included Fitz in her cheery greeting. “Though, is it even morning?”

“It’s just now ten,” Simmons said, settling on the facing couch and leaving plenty of space for him to join her. “And I’m not sure anyone’s even had breakfast; Fitz and I have been in the dining room for two hours at least and no one’s come at all.”

Miss Potts shot Fitz an amused look as he sat down next to Simmons. “Talking about the investigation?”

“No, a carbon monoxide detector and measuring instrument. Only theoretical at this stage, I’m afraid, but wouldn’t it be useful?”

“Very. What would it take to make it practical?”

They looked at each other and made simultaneous “darned if I know” faces. “Years of research and development?” he offered, shrugging.

“You’re still young. You probably have the time if you can find the resources.”

Simmons glanced at him, eyes eloquent. Resources were no longer a stumbling block to any kind of project, not even one like this that would take years to bring to fruition. It was a tempting prospect made more attractive by the idea of working with Simmons—it would be unfair to try to work on it without her, of course, especially after what he had promised Sir Robert. He had a sudden vision of the two of them in lab coats and safety glasses in one of the long, bright labs of MI’s research facilities and was taken aback by the glee that bubbled up inside him at the idea. Schooling his features carefully, he put the thought away and changed directions. “How was the drive last night? You were out late, weren’t you?”

“Oh Lord.” She had to fortify herself with a long draught of coffee before responding. “It worked out that I went with Mr. Weatherby—”

“I’m so sorry,” he and Simmons said at the same time.

“—which would have been all right if that hadn’t meant there was no one in the lead car to provide Tony with directions. You’ll remember, Mr. Fitz, what a problem that is.” He murmured agreement. “So we ended up dawdling through back lanes until past eleven. The delay caused tempers to run a little short.”

Simmons nodded knowingly. “Roger?”

“I believe he slept most of the way. I was actually referring to the terrible quarrel between Miss Huntington-Smith and Mrs. Weatherby.”

“No!”

“About what?”

She leaned in conspiratorially and they mimicked her posture. “Of course, being behind them in an open car I couldn’t hear all the particulars. I feel confident in saying, though, that Mrs. Weatherby accused Miss Huntington-Smith of spreading vicious rumors about her, to which Miss Huntington-Smith responded that they weren’t vicious if they were true and she had better watch out if she didn’t want to be permanently cut from polite society. And then I believe there was the suggestion that someone’s jewels were fake, though I couldn’t swear to whose, and that a gown was obviously a three-seasons-old makeover.”

Fitz let out a long, slow breath, rather horrified by the nitty-gritty details of feminine rows, but Simmons only nodded sagely. “That fits in nicely with something I heard last night—Mr. Weatherby was worried about something Dot might gossip about. But I rather thought that was to do with Mr. Stark.  Surely they wouldn’t be so shameless as to argue about him in front of him?”

Miss Potts shrugged. “If you ask me the two of them are completely outrageous. And Tony would probably think it’s funny, I’m afraid. It may be nothing, but I thought you’d like to know.”

“And Mr. Weatherby?” he asked. “What did you think of him?”

As she took another drink, Miss Potts seemed to be trying and rejecting a number of responses. “There was nothing especially suspicious,” she said finally. “We spoke primarily of a bill he’s supporting in the House—something to do with defense that’s going to cut the Labour Party off at the knees—but probably that doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

“I wouldn’t think so.” Simmons frowned. “Though it’s horrid of him to pick on Labour when there’s Fascists in Italy and Nazis in Germany to worry about.”

“That seems about right for him,” Miss Potts agreed.

There was something behind that statement, he thought, and asked “Why do you say that?”

“It isn’t anything specific I can put my finger on. He just doesn’t—” She stopped to consider. “May I just say that I wouldn’t be very comfortable if he was _my_ governmental representative? He seems vaguely untrustworthy.”

“We already know he’s lied to Fitz about his alibi,” Simmons said thoughtfully. “I wonder what my father will make of him? We should make a point to talk to dad later, Fitz.”

“I tell you what I’d like to know,” Miss Potts said, “and that’s what his wife makes of him. She’s a sly one—I’d wager a good bit that there’s more going on with her than she lets on.”

“They _are_ an odd pair, aren’t they?” Simmons crossed her arms and leaned forward to rest her forearms on her knees, a position that suggested secrecy despite the fact that she didn’t modulate her voice. “Of course it’s good for his ego—and I daresay his political career—to have someone pretty and stupid hanging off his arm, but I think he really cares for her. I can’t imagine _why_ ; it’s patently obvious she doesn’t care three straws for him.”

“Then why would she be with him?” Fitz asked, trying to imagine marrying someone you only barely tolerated and failing. His mother had pounded into him from an early age that marriage was hard enough in the best of circumstances. If you didn’t think the other person was worth the work, surely it would be better to die alone.

“Oh, I don’t know, Fitz. Perhaps she was lonely, or afraid, or wanted to have a chance at money and influence. There’s any number of bad reasons to marry someone, and I don’t know a thing about her. Do you, Miss Potts?”

The other woman shook her head. “No. Tony probably knows more than he’s told me, but she’s still only a recent acquaintance so I doubt it’s anything significant. You haven’t questioned her yet?”

“She’s on the schedule for after lunch, unless we can find her before. We saw her…”

“Earlier,” Fitz supplied.

“But not to speak to.”

“Oh, well,” Miss Potts said, returning to her book, “I’m sure she’ll turn up eventually. In the meantime, you don’t mind if I finish this up? I’m about twenty pages from the end.”

“Not at all.”

“What are you reading?”

Looking a little shame-faced, she turned the cover around. _Death ’Twixt Wind and Water_ , Fitz read. “Don’t think badly of me,” she said quickly, glance darting from Simmons’s stricken face to Fitz’s, “I started it before all this happened and it’s so good I can’t put it down. Anyway, it’s comforting. Detective stories make you believe all will be well with the world.”

If only, Fitz thought. Even once the crime was solved—which he did not allow himself to doubt—he would still have a million and one problems on his plate. Not least of which was the girl now turning to him with the glow of discovery in her eyes. “Fitz, since no one’s here now, couldn’t you show me the gas masks? We can use the stationary Mother keeps for bridge scores. I’m dying—well, not dying, but you know what I mean—to see them.”  

“All right.” If he was drawing, he couldn’t be staring at her, and that would only be a good thing. She leapt to her feet as he flipped open his notebook, turning back more pages than he had realised they had used—blueprint, list, chart, her face in profile. He moved past that one quickly, hoping no one saw. Returning with the spiral bound pad and a freshly sharpened pencil, she handed them off before sitting back down much closer than before; her skirt was basically flung over his right knee. Clearing his throat, he discretely shifted left, only to have her prop her chin in her hand and move even closer. She couldn’t know what she was doing, could she? “Er, Simmons—”

“Yes, Fitz?”

She looked up at him through her eyelashes, eyes wide and mouth prim in the very picture of innocence. Momentarily awestruck, he lost his intended speech and shook his head. He was a man. He could sit next to the ideal specimen of womanhood and talk about gas masks all day if he had to. Far be it from him to embarrass her by drawing attention to something she clearly wasn’t aware of. “Um, which of the masks did you think would be most useful? We’ll begin with that one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From all my research, carbon monoxide detectors were not invented until the late twentieth century (I think the 70s, but don't quote me on that). However, what's the fun of having genius scientists for your main characters if you can't allow them to invent things decades early?
> 
> The book Pepper is reading is not a real murder mystery, but it IS a real one in the fictional world of Lord Peter Wimsey and his paramour, author Harriet Vane. They are my OTP of OTPs and I have been wanting to get a reference in for ages.


	20. Tennis

Jemma knew exactly what she was doing. What had happened in the bathroom had been eye-opening, to say the least: no longer could she pretend, even to herself, that her interest in Fitz was strictly platonic. What _more_ than platonic, she couldn’t say; perhaps it was some sort of Freudian attraction due to his similarities with her father. Whatever it was, though, it refused to be ignored. It hadn’t taken ten seconds for her to realise that she was going to have to figure out a way to work around the fact that the right combination of factors could divert her train of thought into a siding at a moment’s notice. As she changed her blouse and pinned up her hair, she decided that the only thing to do was concentrate on the really important matters—science and murder—and hope that the rest was minor enough that she could manage it.

But as their quick breakfast stretched into a two-hour-long brainstorming session and Jemma found herself making excuses to lean into his space or making awful jokes to try and make him laugh, she began to get a sinking suspicion that her plan of attack was fundamentally flawed. Denying her admiration for Fitz was never going to be successful because she didn’t _want_ it to be—he was brilliant and sweet and a downright pleasure to look at, and while she didn’t know what that warm ooze spreading through her chest signified, she wasn’t quite willing to banish it just yet. Not without some experimentation. After all, what was holding her back in the first place? Only that she didn’t want to lose him as a partner and colleague, and doing so was by no means a certainty. Romantic feelings between partners nearly always led to disaster, but _nearly always_ allowed that disaster was not necessarily imminent. Surely it was possible to both respect someone and care for them? Surely it wasn’t out of the question that personal feelings could enhance professional duties? After all, she told herself, think of the Curies.

Sitting next to him as he drew and described, she formed an early hypothesis: _intellectual interest may co-exist with personal interest in some cases_. The carbon monoxide detector had been Experiment One; the pages of notes on gas mask forms and functions she was inscribing at a madcap rate were the second. Not only was the information good in itself, but it slotted into place alongside her research to suggest new directions and techniques she couldn’t wait to try. “You should come to my lab,” she blurted out in the middle of a particularly intriguing concept, instantly pink.

Happily, he didn’t seem to mind being interrupted, a quirked eyebrow the only indication she had done anything unusual. “I’ve been in your lab already, several times.”

“Not the Icehouse. My lab in college. I could get you a pass and you could come see what I’m working on.”

“Yeah, I’d love that.” The light in his eyes dimmed as quickly as it appeared. “Only I don’t think we’ll be able to manage that any time soon. With what, you know, everything.”

“I’ve got to go up today,” she said, twisting her fingers together in her lap. “I’ve got my last tutorial tomorrow morning. Perhaps you could, um…come with me?” Her voice squeaked on the last word, hesitant for reasons not obvious from the question itself. People came to visit the labs all the time; why should he be any different?

“Oh, no,” came her mother’s cool tones from the door. Jemma whipped her head around, simultaneously moving about five inches away from Fitz in case Edith hadn’t noticed. A fool’s hope, really—her mother saw everything she wanted to and, as her gaze slipped past Fitz, nothing she didn’t. “No, I’m afraid that won’t be possible. You can go as you like, darling, once you’ve received the summons of course, but I need Mr. Fitz here to fill up the doubles tennis tournament. You _do_ play tennis, I hope, Mr. Fitz? I’m afraid I can’t let you escape this time.”

“Yeah,” he responded to her mother as he beamed questions at Jemma from the corner of his eye. _Tennis? How long? What about our plan?_ She lifted one shoulder almost imperceptibly, wishing she could groan without her mother hearing. A tennis tournament would be an all-day activity, strictly regimented and continually under Edith’s judging eye; there would be no opportunity to get anyone away for questioning and no hope of help from her father, who loved tennis after His Family and The Law. Their whole plan was in tatters.

“Unless we can be a pair,” Fitz said as they jogged towards the courts, newly changed into tennis whites after a silent, awkward lunch.

She shook her head, swinging her racquet against a shrub. “You don’t know my mother. She’s been working on the pairs since last night, if I know her at all.”

Sure enough, when they reached the courts they were met with a neatly chalked board describing the teams and sets for the first round:

Fitz turned to her, panicked, but there was nothing to be done about it. “Stiff upper lip,” she whispered as she passed him on her way to court one.

“Yeah, Scots don’t really have a tradition of hiding our feelings,” he hissed after her, eyeing Dot with about two-thirds of the fear he should be experiencing.

Jemma supposed she should feel sorry for him, but as he had her father and Miss Potts to counteract Dot’s odiousness and she was stranded on the island of Hostile and Idiotic she couldn’t quite muster up proper sympathy. Putting on a cheery grin to meet Roger’s sullen glare, she picked a ball up from the edge of the court and lobbed it at him. “Well, this is lucky. We’re never on a team together.”

Catching the ball one-handed, he bounced it twice and smacked it out-of-bounds. “We’d better win. I’ve got quite a packet on this.”

Was that wise, she wondered, considering he was already heavily in debt? Perhaps this bet would wipe out Friday’s losses to Stark. “I hope you haven’t bet we’ll beat Dad. He’s had nothing to do all spring but practice his serve.”

“Just Stark, that blithering chimp.”

Jemma glanced over to where Stark lounged on the grass, heedless of stains. He was talking with one expressive hand to her mother, whose tight, interested expression betrayed her utter indifference to whatever he was saying. “I don’t think that’s quite fair. Miss Potts is clever, and she seems to think there’s more to him.”

“She’s paid to. What’s your excuse? Developing a pash?” She began to sputter indignantly, but he amended his own diagnosis immediately. “Oh no, silly me. Your type is Scottish secretary-cum-criminals.”

Her plan was to pointedly refuse to dignify that with a response, but Mr. Weatherby’s ill-tempered demand that they serve the damn ball already left her only time for a glare. “Love-all!” she called, and smacked it straight at Mr. Weatherby’s face.

The Weatherbys were not very good players and she and Roger won the set in three, though some of her mother’s line calls, she thought, were generous. She didn’t argue. Not only did Mrs. Weatherby seem incapable of making contact with the ball, she refused to chase down out drives at anything faster than a tortoise’s pace, thus extending the set long enough that Mr. Stark and Cousin Mary had already begun their game against the winners on the other court. Watching Sir Robert’s locomotive-like serves, she didn’t give them very long.

Mrs. Simmons waved Fitz and Dot over. “Darling, you and Roger sit out this round. We’ll have you play whoever loses your father’s match.”

“Marvelous,” Roger said, stalking over to the grass without waiting to hear any more. Jemma matched Edith’s eyeroll and followed.

_Anything?_ Fitz asked with his eyes as they passed each other.

_No._

But not for long, she promised herself. This was a prime opportunity to talk to her cousin, who would likely clam up if anyone else was around. Tiny Jemima, subject of pranks and mockery all through their growing-up years, would hardly seem a threat. She could say anything and he wouldn’t question it.  It was truly a pleasure dealing with less-sophisticated minds sometimes. The only problem was where to begin? She didn’t doubt he had key information somewhere in that gin-soaked brain of his.

“One thing to say for your little crook: he’s got good form.”

“He’s not a crook,” she said automatically as she sat down, shading her eyes to see the rally currently going on at Court One. As she watched, Mr. Weatherby sent a short volley over the net that threatened to bounce twice before Fitz scooped it up with a particularly tricky backhanded swipe to put the ball right on the line—a skilled play completely wasted on the Weatherbys. She applauded in spite of herself, earning a pleased if bashful grin and four unsubtle glares. “Of course Dot’s doing well too.”

“Don’t talk about Dot,” Roger growled. “She’s dead to me.”

“Obviously not, or you wouldn’t be in such a funk about it.”

“I’m dead to her, then. I may as well not even exist for all she notices me. This rotten murder is the only thing keeping her from spending every minute with that clown. She says I’m all wet and haven’t got any pep—is that fair, Jemma? I ask you.”

She declined to answer that question. “Don’t be stupid. You know she only really cares about the money—that is,” she added hastily, “she’s always chasing after men with a lot of money. But she comes back to you in the end.”

“Not this time,” he said mournfully. “Stark has endless pockets—he can throw twenty-pound notes on the table and not break a sweat, _and_ he’s got enough money to not even blink at IOUs. I hate him. I should have never agreed to play poker. It’s so much harder to lose large sums of money at bridge.”

“Oh, _did_ you lose large sums of money?” she asked, hoping it sounded innocent enough to divert suspicion.

Roger didn’t bat an eye. “One just keeps thinking, ‘this hand, this hand’, and suddenly it’s two a.m. and you’re £1000 deep, and then what do you do?”

“Well, Uncle Morton—”

“Not this time.”

“Oh!” Her eyes grew wide. Uncle Morton had never, to her knowledge, refused Roger money; that he would do so now meant the amounts in question were very serious. Perhaps she and Fitz needed to erase that question mark under Motive. “Why didn’t you walk away, idiot?”

“I did!” he protested, crossing his arms and pouting. “When the bridge game broke up I tried to get Dot to come out for a walk—the Weatherbys had already left to have a quarrel, we had all stopped playing—but she wouldn’t. I went out without her, thinking she’d follow, but I waited in the garden for _ages_ and she didn’t come.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she said, “you could have just gone to bed.”

“And leave her down there with him? What purpose would that serve?”

She sighed inwardly, rethinking the pleasure of dealing with less-sophisticated minds. “What time _did_ you all go to bed?”

“Damn it all, I don’t know—the whole thing’s rather a blur. It was a good job I had already gone up to get the chips or I would have blundered into Cousin Mary’s room. Made that mistake earlier, and I was much less drunk then.”

“How did you not realise it wasn’t yours?”

He shrugged. “I’ve never stayed in the family rooms before. I wasn’t paying attention. It wasn’t until I opened the drawer and saw that ghastly photograph she carries around with her.”

Jemma knew the one, having seen a larger version displayed on Cousin Mary’s mantel with an enormous vase of hothouse flowers that somehow managed not to hide the inscription: _To Mary, Queen of Heavenly Things, from Jack._ She had to admit “ghastly” was not a bad word choice, though one shouldn’t say it where Cousin Mary might hear.“Roger, that’s unkind. You know she’s never got over him.”

“It was twenty-five years ago, Jemima. I may feel badly about Dot now but don’t hold your breath that I still will when I’m fifty.” Digging around in his pocket, he pulled out his flask and took a long swig without offering her any first.

“Fifty-three, won’t you be?”

“Look at Small Cousin and her poems. You should stop being a scientist and take up writing.”

Out on Court One, Fitz was having a similarly difficult time with Dot. It wasn’t that she was a bad player, but that she kept up a steady stream of vitriol any time there was a break in the action. Fitz had already heard far more than he cared to about the quarrel Sonia and Dot had had last night; having every single bit of it rehashed between rallies was an exercise in Job-like patience. He didn’t know how Mr. Weatherby stood it. Perhaps he had evolved selective hearing over the course of his married life.

Finally, they were only two points away from finishing the set. Then at least they would be done playing the Weatherbys and Dot could return to giving him all sorts of unnecessary gossip about whomever their new opponents were (Simmons, please let it be Simmons). If Mr. Weatherby would just chase after the ball himself once so he could ask Mrs. Weatherby what she had been doing that morning…but he was above that, apparently. Or else he was just too winded. A nice groundstroke sent the ball over the net and flying past Mrs. Weatherby, who gave Dot an evil look before sauntering after it. Mr. Weatherby groaned, resting his hands on his knees and breathing heavily.

“And who _knows_ what they were arguing about Friday night,” Dot continued from the last break, “though I would be comfortable wagering it had _something_ to do with that man.”

“The man you saw on your drive?” he asked wearily, not caring but having learned by now that a response was required if one didn’t want to be abused oneself.

“She dropped her handkerchief from the car right in front of him _on purpose_ , I’m sure. She was responsible for directions, you know.”

“You told me.” But Fitz knew, as Dot did not, that Stark could and would make a hash of even the best directions in the world; Mrs. Weatherby could have made plans for a secret liaison with her lover and set up road signs with directions and Fitz would still be surprised if they got there. Before he could say so, the woman in question returned with the ball and dropped it at her husband’s feet so he had to stoop to pick it up to serve.

“Fifteen–forty-five: set point,” he called, then threw the ball up in the air and sent it streaking towards Fitz. It was moving fast, but not so fast he couldn’t calculate the angle and velocity in his head and move to meet it solidly, slamming it into the back left corner of the court. “Good shot,” Weatherby said bleakly, his racquet already on the ground beside him.

It _was_ a good shot, actually, worthy of more recognition than it had received, and he looked around to see if anyone else had noticed. Across the courts, Simmons caught his eye and gave him a quick huzzah hand-wave before returning the shreds of her attention to whatever Roger was saying. As he picked up his balls to balance on his racquet, he caught Dot looking at him curiously. “What?” he asked, trying to make the corners of his mouth turn down.

“You’re awfully brave.” It did not sound like a compliment.

He ducked his head. “No, I’m not, really.”

“Either that or completely potty. You have to be if you’re thinking of trying your luck with Jemma Simmons.”

“I—what? No, I’m not—we’re not—”

“Ohhh.” She lifted both eyebrows, seeming to understand something he didn’t know he was saying. “You’re the confirmed bachelor-type? That explains it, then.”

Everyone knew what that was code for, but despite his years in public school it had never been true of him. “No. No. Not that. Um, no.”

Her mouth twisted up in what was, he thought, the first smile he had ever seen from her. It did not surprise him that it looked rather like a lion’s. “Lord love you, I don’t care. I don’t care if you’re a murderer, either, except as it’s inconvenient to me. And so far”—she swung her racquet lazily, eyes on the fine figure Tony Stark cut in his tennis whites—“it’s not inconvenient at all. I should probably thank you if you did it.”

“I didn’t.” In response she waved a careless hand, clearly no longer paying attention to him. However, as this was the first halfway civil conversation they had managed in two sets, he wasn’t willing to let the opportunity slide. “Why do you say—” he began, only to be cut off when Mrs. Simmons came up to them, clipboard in hand.

“You’ll be sitting out this set, if you could clear the court? The others are ready to begin.”

Fitz beat a hasty retreat back to the grass, Dot stopping to make a joke he couldn’t hear in Stark’s direction. From Roger’s scowl and Simmons’s shocked expression, he had a general idea what it entailed. Cousin Mary looked sick. _Brazen hussy_ , he thought in his next-door-neighbour’s voice, regretting that the task of getting her information had fallen to him.

He let a few points be won before he restarted the conversation. “I think Miss Simmons told me you and Roger are engaged?”

She laughed as if he were Charlie Chaplin, pulling out her lighter and a cigarette case. “Dear Jemma, how bourgeois she is about these things. Nobody gets married anymore! Unless you’re doing it for secret reasons of your own, like those two.” He followed her gesture to the Weatherbys. “Goodness knows they aren’t in it for love.”

Recalling the earlier discussion, he asked, “money? Power?”

“On his side I imagine it was more…animalistic, if you can imagine that, o-not-confirmed-bachelor. And hers? Both of the above. And I daresay something more.”

“What?”

She took a long pull on her cigarette before she answered, letting out the smoke in a trickle. “Let’s just say I’m not entirely sure she isn’t hiding something rather damaging to David Weatherby’s parliamentary career.”

Well that was hardly anything; it certainly wasn’t useful. He’d have to get something more specific than that. “To do with Mr. Stark? I know her husband isn’t happy about the time they’ve been spending together…”

She looked at him sharply, putting down her cigarette. “How do you know that?”

“Oh, uh…I heard it…around. He’s not very careful about hiding it.”

“That’s true enough. You should have seen his face that night! It was a scream. But it’s nothing to do with Tony, though I will say she’s not behaving in ways destined to keep her husband very pleased with her. When one has lovers one must at least be discreet about it.”

A return to the theme of a mystery lover. If Weatherby suspected one and thought it was Stark, it would be a decent motive for murder; on the other hand, Dot appeared convinced it didn’t have to do with Stark at all. Though she obviously had a tongue like a razor, he found himself not doubting her ability to access the situation. She was of the sort that knew that kind of thing, probably from experience. On a third hand—he wished Simmons was here to provide it—would a woman who had married a man for security risk losing it for a fling? He said as much, sending Dot off into another peal of laughter.

“Oh, Mr. Fitz, may I wrap you up and keep you? A pocket Scottish Murderer, Entirely Innocent in Every Other Respect?” Sighing, she took another pull. “You and Jemma are perfect for each other. If she’s ever thought about a man before, it was because he was dead and she wanted to dissect him.”

“We’re not…” he tried again, unable to find the word for it.

She moved her eyebrows into something resembling skepticism, though it was nothing on Simmons. “I thought you were clever. You must be clever or Jemma would have dropped you by now. She has no time for stupid people—that’s why we don’t get on.”

“So,” he said, “I’m brave or potty if I am—if we are, and an idiot if not?”

“Well,” she said, shrugging, “you make your own choices. Sir Robert and Edith are formidable in their own ways and for different reasons—they won’t let their pride and joy _or_ her substantial inheritance go to just anyone. On the other hand, she’s _clearly_ interested in you, and she’s also rather stubborn, so I would say you have as good a chance as anyone I’ve ever seen to win the prize.”

It was as if Fitz’s brain had switched itself off. Possibly, he thought, it had, some sort of emergency valve to keep him from saying the first stupid thing that popped into his mind when it was in no sort of state to handle the finer functions. Breathing, even, was difficult. Had she said—? Yes. But could it be—? Surely not! There was no possible chance that Jemma Simmons would be interested in him, Leopold Fitz, no matter how clever or (now) wealthy he was—he had nothing to offer her that she didn’t already have in spades. No chance. She was being kind, that was all; Dot must not recognise it because they didn’t get on. That was the only explanation.

And yet. He had been willing to accept her expertise on personal matters when it came to Mrs. Weatherby and Stark. Was it intellectually sound to dismiss them out of hand when it came to himself?

The question gnawed at him through the rest of that set and into the next, where he and Dot dispatched Stark and Cousin Mary with only a little more effort than they had expended to beat the Weatherbys. Lost in thought, he didn’t make quite as many brilliant plays as usual, but as he couldn’t even look at Simmons playing on the other court it didn’t much matter if he was impressing her or not. He didn’t even bother trying to figure out when, exactly, that had been what he was doing.

At the end of the fourth set, Mrs. Simmons called everyone together for an announcement. “It’s now five o’clock; I trust no one minds if we finish this up before dinner?” She didn’t pause for disagreement. “As Sir Robert and Miss Potts have won all four of their games they are the undisputed champions. The final two sets will be the Weatherbys versus Mr. Stark and Cousin Mary on Court Two, and the other two pairs on Court One.”

Jemma looked at Fitz out of the corner of her eye, concerned for his well-being. Since he and Dot had sat out their round he had looked rather pale and slightly sick; his play in the next set had been good, but not up to the standard set by the first two. She hoped he was feeling all right. Apparently feeling her appraisal, he looked over and gave her a brief, wan smile. Next to him, Dot raised an eyebrow significantly. Jemma flushed and looked away.

“All right?” Edith asked, not even pretending to hide the sharp frown with which she was skewering her daughter. “Let’s to it.”

“Wait, Edith.” Sir Robert tapped her shoulder. “Mrs. Pierce is coming. Perhaps we should hear what she has to say first; it’s likely about the inquest.”

Sure enough, when the housekeeper came up, breathing heavily but still appropriately calm, she announced that the inspector and the constable were here with the summonses and were required to distribute them in person. “Shall I send them here, madam, or will you come up to the house?”

Edith sighed, much put out. “We’ll go up, I suppose. It wouldn’t do to lose them.”

“As you please, madam. And there’s a man here to see Mr. Fitz. He claims to be his solicitor.”

“Mr. Biggs!” Jemma cried, seeking out Fitz across the knot of people. Relief and pleasure washed across his face. “You have to go up right now, Fitz, I’ll put away your racquet. Put him in the study, that’ll be fine, won’t it, dad? Ask him to stay for dinner!” He waved a hand in acknowledgement, already on the move in a light, bouncing jog that was thirty percent ridiculous and seventy percent darling.

“Well,” Dot said with a sniff as he disappeared behind a hedge. “I’ve never known a man to be so excited to see his solicitor. I wonder you aren’t jealous, Jemma?”

She answered distractedly, already considering why the solicitor needed to come down instead of waiting for Fitz to go to him. “Of what? Mr. Biggs and I offer completely different benefits.”

The silence that followed made her wonder what she had said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, graphic by the incandescent star Madalayna!


	21. Mr. Biggs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel it's important to mention upfront that "Whitehall" refers to a street in London where all the government offices are. British people use it to mean the government in general, kind of like Americans use "Washington" or "Capitol Hill". The immortal leader of Hydra has no place in this story.

The sight of the lathe-thin, sharp-faced Mr. Biggs standing in the hallway made Fitz want to clutch him to his chest and weep into his shoulder for awhile, as he had done on several occasions when he had first been sent to school. Being a grown man and highly aware of the butler whisking away the solicitor’s coat, he managed to keep his greeting to a firm handshake and a “Thank God you’re here.”

Mr. Biggs allowed the greeting, then wiped his hand on his customary red silk handkerchief. “It’s been dreadful, I assume.”

“Yes,” Fitz said, “well, no, but I could do with your help. Let’s go into the study. No one will bother us there.”

Surveying the study with a practiced eye, Mr. Biggs gave the slow nod that indicated approval and sat down in one of the leather wingbacks without dusting off the seat first. “I have always heard that Sir Robert was a man of good taste. I am pleased to see this is not incorrect.”

“He keeps a good bar, too—I could probably get you something, if you like?”

“No thank you.” He tented his hands in front of him. “At present I require further information, not sustenance. You have been, for the last thirty-six hours, a guest in a house in which your uncle was killed. Also stopping in this house is presumably the real murderer. Additionally, I assume you have not been overlooked by the police in their investigation, though I am not privy to the details. And yet you say it has not been dreadful. Please explain.”

Said like that, it sounded downright horrifying. Even removing about a quarter of the gloom, as one always did when speaking with Mr. Biggs, still left him stranded in a Murder House under threat of the gallows. He could have locked himself in his room and taken all his meals off trays and no one, he thought, would blame him. How to explain that the only thing unsettling him right now were the careless words of a confirmed gossip about a matter of much less importance than the others he faced? Collapsing into the facing chair, he ran his hands over his face. “It’s, um, it’s been all right. I haven’t been left alone. They’ve been very kind.”

“The murderer has been very kind, or the people who think you are the murderer have been very kind?”

“Not everyone thinks I’m the murderer,” he mumbled. “I do have an alibi.”

“Thank God for small favours. We haven’t got time for you to be on trial for murder.”

“Even if we had time I would prefer to avoid it. Why don’t we have time?”

In response, Mr. Biggs just stared at him incredulously. “Macpherson Industries, Fitz. This is a very important time for the company. It is critical that we handle this transition from a place of strength. The Board is very concerned.”

Damn, he had nearly managed to forget. _What to do about Simmons_ dropped sharply in his rankings of problems, leaving a sick feeling marked MI in the pit of his stomach. “I don’t blame them. They’ll probably lose pots of money on the Exchange tomorrow when word gets out.” It was actually astonishing it hadn’t got out yet—maybe there was a reason for that? He looked at Mr. Biggs hopefully. “Unless you aren’t going to tell them?”

“And how do you expect that to work?” Mr. Biggs frowned, shaking his head. “Yes, they are naturally concerned how this news will affect the market. However, they are more anxious about what this will do to the Stark collaboration.”

“I don’t know anything about that.”

“Yes. That’s exactly the problem. Nor do they. All they know is it represents a great deal of money. If that were all, this meeting could have waited until after the inquest. But that is not all, Fitz.” Mr. Biggs’s naturally somber tone took on a funereal timbre; he tucked in his chin so his nose stuck out like a spear. Fitz gripped the armrests in preparation for some very bad news. “The Stark Collaboration,” he said, “is a matter of national security for both England and America. The ministry members attached, both here and in the States, are those at the very highest level. More money has already been poured into it than MI has spent this year on the rest of our projects combined. It is imperative that it be brought to fruition as soon as possible.”

Fitz collapsed back in the chair, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth to keep the shriek building inside him from escaping. Eyeing him sympathetically, Mr. Biggs continued his ruthless march. “At present it is in the nascent stages of development, but ending the project now would represent an enormous loss for both nations. Of course, none of this can be explained to the board. They can know nothing, which means they are far more likely to put up serious resistance to the project moving forward with you as the head. Technically, you have the sole power of decision. However, if they do not agree, there is nothing to stop them from going to the papers with their disapproval, leading to a collapse of the stock that will drive the company into a crippling bankruptcy. I don’t need to tell you what that will do to the project.”

A headache sprung into being behind his eyes; his head was pounding, throbbing, and his hands were shaking and he thought he might be sick all over Sir Robert’s carpet. Springing to his feet, he pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers and turned away from Mr. Biggs, not even able to look at him. “So what you’re saying is I have to go up to Town and convince the Board of my ability to run the company, or I’m going to send it into bankruptcy and leave both us and the States open to some kind of attack?”

He hoped with everything in him that he was mistaken, that he had misunderstood despite the very clear explanation. It was ridiculous. It could not be possible that he, Fitz, who only three days ago had barely been responsible for answering the phone, could suddenly be handed this amount of power and expected to wield it. What person in their right mind—and Uncle George had been in his right mind, even though it wasn’t a very good one—would do something like that? Having talked himself out of hysterics he turned around expectantly, only to find Mr. Biggs, whom Fitz had never seen be anything less than supremely confident, squirming.

“Essentially.”

For the third time that weekend, black crept over his vision. This time, though, it wasn’t the welcoming black of oblivion—it was the red-tinged black of rage, the kind that made him want to crash and punch and throw the paperweight from Sir Robert’s desk through the window. Anything to keep from shattering himself.

Mr. Biggs was at his elbow without Fitz knowing how he got there, one hand digging in his pocket as he grabbed one of Fitz’s clenched fists with the other. “There, there,” he said urgently, “Fitz, remember you are in someone else’s house.”

He was right. This was Sir Robert’s study. He liked Sir Robert. He didn’t want to make Sir Robert upset with him, especially after he had been so nice about Simmons. His hands relaxed, just a little, but enough for Mr. Biggs to shove into it whatever he had found in his pocket. “There, now,” the other man soothed. “It will be all right.”

“It _can’t_ be.”

“It will be. Just like every other time. Fitz, look at your hand.”

He did as directed, having learnt long ago that obeying Mr. Biggs was the quickest path to success. Three lemon drops rolled around in his palm. “Winchester?” he said, swallowing back the lump in his throat.

“It seemed appropriate.”

Yes, Fitz agreed, it did. He had been in far over his head, needlessly violent, terribly afraid, horribly lonely then, too. Of course, then it had only been his own survival at stake, rather than the entire Western world. “Oh God,” he whispered, “I’m only a kid.”

“No,” Mr. Biggs said, “you are a man.”

Closing his fingers around the candies, he dropped into the chair and rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his hands. “Why would he do this to me?”

Mr. Biggs made a noise in his throat that would have been a sigh from anyone else. “I am afraid it was nothing to do with you, only his strong desire to keep the business in the family. I tried to talk him out of it, but I failed.”

Looking up blearily, Fitz wondered how far your stomach could fall before it was a serious danger. If not even Mr. Biggs held out hope, he might as well be done for. “Because you know I’ll muck the whole thing up?”

“Good God man, no!” He jumped at the outburst, then started even more violently when Mr. Biggs came over and placed a hand on his shoulder, patting gently. “I argued against it because I knew you would be miserable, not because you would be miserable at it. Of course, the present circumstances were not anticipated, but…”

“I can’t do it, Mr. Biggs.”

“Perhaps not. The Board is extremely difficult to please.”

“But then the Project—”

“Will die, yes. But it wouldn’t be your fault, necessarily.”

“As good as.”

“No.” The solicitor shook his head. “It will be the fault of whomever killed your uncle before his time. No one can blame you for this.”

His words flicked on a light in the distant corridors of Fitz’s mind. There was something there that could have been important in another time…perhaps it was important, and he just couldn’t see why, yet. He ought to ask Simmons, when he saw her again. She could help him make sense of that, at least. The rest of this nonsense might be beyond even her powers.

Mr. Biggs continued, not aware he hadn’t been listening. “I saw the policemen in the hall with the summonses. Once those are served you will be able to return to Town. Though there doesn’t appear to be a decent train this evening.”

As they had had this very conversation at lunch, Fitz was able to answer in the negative. “We can’t take a car, either. Their chauffeurs have Sundays off.”

“Very inconvenient. I suppose there is no hope for it but to take the train tomorrow.” He sat down again, pulling his satchel towards him and fishing the tiny key from his watch fob. “For now, I’ve brought information that will be helpful to you in your meetings. Is this a safe place to go over it?”

“As safe as any. Simmons will keep anyone from bothering us.”

Mr. Biggs paused in unloading the reams of paper, his eyebrows drawn down to the bridge of his nose. “You think it’s wise to refer to a titled personage like that?”

“What? Oh, no, not Sir Robert. He’s been kind, but—no, I meant his daughter.”

“I wasn’t aware Sir Robert had a daughter.”

He was aghast that anyone could _not_ know her, then realised that he himself had been ignorant of her existence until forty-eight hours ago. Already, the time before Jemma was becoming hazy. “He does. She’s wonderful.” No, that was wrong—no, it was right, but not what he meant to say. “Been wonderful, I mean. To me. With everything.”

Thankfully, Mr. Biggs let his gaffe pass unremarked upon, contenting himself with an “ah” before handing Fitz a thick brief tied up with a string. “This one first, I think.”

But before he could do more than scan the first page–more than enough to let him know he was in way over his head—the door from the drawing room opened and Simmons peered in apologetically. “Pardon me, I know you’re busy, but the Inspector would like to speak with you, Fitz. It won’t take a minute.”

“Yeah, of course, be right there.” He stood too quickly, sending the papers from his lap in a cascade to the floor. Some swept under the chairs; others flew nearly to where Simmons stood. She stooped and caught them, holding out one hand to stop Mr. Biggs from getting up.

“No no, let me. Mother would murder me if I let a guest see under the furniture, even though there’s nothing here but carpet.”

“Miss Simmons, I presume.” He half-rose, attempting to get out of her way as she crawled forward after another sheet. “You will muss your frock.”

“Oh, that doesn’t matter. It’s just a tennis dress. Fitz, there’s one—”

Already on his knees, he reached for the indicated paper without really looking, concentrated on not dropping those he had already collected. But rather than the rough, crinkled texture of the document he expected, his hand landed on something soft and warm that trembled under his touch. His eyes snapped to attention mere inches away from hers. They had grown very wide and dark, their normal golden-brown nearly black, and her lips were parted like she couldn’t get a breath. He felt rather like he had been running, himself—heart pumping, limbs trembling, mind a complete blank. The only thing tethering him to reality was the sudden surprise of her freckles. 

 “Fitz.”

It was as if Mr. Biggs’s voice had startled him out of a hundred year sleep; he blinked and shook his head, willing his thoughts to return to coherence. “Sorry,” he lied, pulling back quickly.

“It was an accident.” There was an odd twist at the end of her sentence he didn’t understand, but the breathiness could have been pulled from his own heaving lungs. Putting the papers she had gathered into Mr. Biggs’s outstretched hand, she rose in one graceful motion and dusted off her knees. “I’ll just go tell them you’re coming, shall I? I expect these are confidential, anyway.”

He watched her go in a daze, sitting back on his heels and clutching the papers to his chest. He was a gentleman, he was a gentleman, he was a _poor lower-class gentleman_ whatever Dot thought and she could not possibly be for him. Mr. Biggs’s intent look, heavy with concern, was enough to make him remember that. But when she hesitated at the door to give him just the barest hint of a smile, still-shining eyes focused on the floor, regret rose inside him in a crashing wave. It didn’t matter if she would never be his. He was already a fair way down the path to being entirely hers.

Entering the drawing room, Jemma was afraid everybody would be able to see what had just happened on her face. It seemed incredible that one could be shaken on an atomic level and not show it. And that was what had happened, not technically, of course, but then again no one could prove it hadn’t, either, could they? She could still feel his hand on hers—rough, calloused, strong—it had been an accident, she knew, but what had happened next had not been. He had _lingered_ , looking into her eyes like he had wanted to drown in them, unless that that was what she had wanted and he had only been looking at her like a treasure he had been searching for his whole life. Only that was wrong, too, because he was a jewel himself. The whole thing was very confusing. Inexplicable, really; she could say what had happened but not the effect it had on her. All she knew now was that something had fundamentally changed, and it seemed unlikely that she would ever recover.

“He is coming, darling?”

It took a second for her to comprehend her mother’s question, having totally forgotten why she had gone into the study in the first place. The solid bulk of Inspector Ross, standing like a plinth in front of the fireplace, brought her back to the present. Slipping into a chair by the French doors, she nodded. “Yes, shortly.”

Ross acknowledged her information, then returned his attention to Mr. Weatherby. “As I said, sir, we are only able to give leave to depart in special circumstances. You have business responsibilities you cannot put off, so you may go, but your wife has no such need. They won’t let her go with you.”

“Nonsense.” Mr. Weatherby’s tone allowed for no disagreement. “She is my wife. I want her with me. That’s reason enough.”

Sprawled across the sofa, Sonia looked rooted in. “Oh, David, just leave it. It isn’t worth all that fuss. You’ll only be gone a day, anyway.”

Jemma glanced down at the summons in her lap and read it again, equally thrilled and worried about what it signified:           

_“To wit, To Miss Jemima Roberta Jane Simmons by virtue of a Warrant under the Hand and Seal of John Taylor one of His Majesty’s coroners for the said county of H———, to be and appear before him on Tuesday the 25th at eleven o’clock a.m. precisely at the Coroner’s Court in the Market Square of Meryton, then and there to give Evidence and be examined on His Majesty’s behalf touching the death of George Macpherson, and not to depart without leave. Herein fail not at your peril.”_

On one hand, she had never been a witness at an inquest before, so that was rather exciting. On the other, that left only one day more and she would have to be away tomorrow for her tutorial, leaving Fitz alone and the investigation nowhere near complete. They were running out of time.

“Miss Simmons and Mr. Weatherby are allowed to leave, then.” Ross cleared his throat, glancing across the room to watch Fitz and Mr. Biggs enter. “Now that we’re all here—”

“Pardon me, Inspector.”

Ross looked vaguely affronted by the interruption. “And you are, sir?”

“Arthur Biggs, Inspector. Mr. Fitz’s solicitor. I am afraid he will be required in town tomorrow as well. He has meetings regarding Macpherson Industries that cannot be rescheduled.”

“What,” Dot cut in, “do they need him to clean out his desk?”

Mr. Biggs turned the full force of his heavy presence to stab at Dot, who couldn’t quite hide her discomfort. Jemma decided she rather liked him. “In a manner of speaking. He will of course have to clean out his desk to that he can transfer his belongings to the President’s office.”

The cry burst out from more than one startled mouth. “What!”

Mr. Biggs nodded; if it didn’t seem antithetical to his character, Jemma would have said he was smug. “Oh yes. Upon his uncle’s death Mr. Fitz became sole executor of the estate and president of the company. As you can imagine he has a great many new responsibilities. And, unfortunately, Whitehall will not be rescheduled.”

“Whitehall!” Ross stroked his mustache, making a yeoman’s effort at pretending the news didn’t affect him. The rest of the guests, turning alternately red and pale, were not so successful. David Weatherby looked almost sick; her mother and Cousin Mary appeared as if a bomb had just gone off in front of them. Jemma had to stifle a laugh. That was one in all their faces—served them right, writing Fitz off just because of his position. Glancing across the room to share the joke, she realised too late that they hadn’t made proper eye contact since The Look. What if it happened again in front of everybody? But his gaze, when she met it, held only panic covered by a thin layer of determinedness. Had he known about Whitehall, she wondered, or was he hearing this for the first time as well? He must be terrified. Poor thing; he had more than his fair share of shocks this weekend. But look at him: he was standing straight and strong, arms down at his sides and his fingers still. Whatever he felt, he wasn’t letting it beat him. A sudden rush of affection warmed her to her core. _You’ll be fine_ , she thought hard in his direction. _You’ll be great_.

Whether he understood the exact message or not, it seemed to help. Some of the fear dissipated, the corners of his mouth turning up for a nanosecond before he spoke. “Yes, Whitehall. So you can see, it’s vital that I be able to go to Town tomorrow. Tonight would be better, of course, but—”

“I’ll take you,” she said, instantly seeing a solution to at least two of her problems. “Mr. Biggs, too, if he doesn’t mind riding in the rumble seat?”

“Oh, well, I don’t think—” Mr. Biggs began, but Fitz cut him off.

“Yeah, that’ll be good. Can we go—”

“After dinner? Certainly.”

He did not actually smile at her, but her breath caught in her chest as if he did. “I’ll skip dessert.”

“Yes, dinner.”

Returning her attention to her mother, Jemma finally understood what it meant to tear your eyes away from something. But Edith didn’t send even a hint of a glare her way, focusing the power of her authority on Ross. “It’s nearly dinnertime now, Inspector. Was there something else you needed to tell us, or may we go change and eat?”

“Ah, yes.” Ross, too, appeared to have a hard time remembering what he was doing before finding out about Fitz. “Yes, I needed to ask who smokes Wifflets?”

Dot gave a sharp bark of laughter. “Only everybody.”

“I smoke Lucky Strikes,” Stark said.

Sonia reached over and picked up the ashtray from the sidetable, poking through it with one well-manicured finger. “There are a few Lucky Strikes in here, but it’s mostly Wifflets or cigar ends. Who smokes cigars?”

Fitz raised his hand. “That is, my uncle did. When he was feeling pleased with himself. I think he won at cards last night. Perhaps that was it.”

Appearing pensive, Ross gave a quick nod at Tompkins. “That was all, I think. We’ll let you get to dinner now.”

The party filed out more quickly than was polite, openly staring at Fitz despite Mr. Biggs’s attempts to shield him from their skeptical, prying eyes. Jemma cast a sympathetic look his direction before plucking at Miss Potts’s elbow. “Miss Potts, I wonder—”

She stopped, smiling genially. “Why don’t you call me Pepper?”

“Oh!” She was taken aback a moment. “And I’m Jemma, then. I wonder, might I switch places with you at dinner? You’re between Roger and Fitz, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am. I don’t mind switching—as long as you haven’t worked out a plot with the chef to poison your plate so I eat it. I am _deathly_ allergic to strawberries.”

“Nothing like that,” she promised. But from Pepper’s poorly-concealed amusement, Jemma figured she didn’t think that anyway.


	22. Sunday Night

Sliding into her seat an hour later, Jemma surveyed the room with pleasure. To her left, Fitz; to her right, Roger and, on his left, Dot. Her mother, separated by Cousin Mary and Mr. Stark, would be unable to hear conversation carried on at a normal volume. It couldn’t have worked out more perfectly if she had planned it—which, of course, she had. Under the cover of the first course, she turned to Fitz and whispered from the side of her mouth, “follow my lead.”

“Always,” he said, looking straight ahead, “where?”

“Oh, Fitz! Nowhere, not technically.” The serving platters returned to the sideboard, the signal for conversation to begin, and Jemma launched into her carefully considered plan. Raising her voice and angling her body, though not her face, toward her cousin, she protested “That’s ridiculous, Fitz. Of _course_ we would have beat you. I’m as certain of that as I am that earth travels around the sun.”

As she had anticipated, he managed to come up with a response that fit perfectly into the conversation she had scripted in her head. “Oh, well, I’m as confident that we could have beat you as I am that copper melts at 1080 degrees. Your short-court work, Simmons, is sloppy.”

She gaped at the insult, as stung as if it had been real. Just because he looked like he was born with a racquet in hand… “Of all the nerve! Roger, tell Mr. Fitz we would have won this afternoon.”

“Who can tell,” Roger said glumly, watching his soup drop from his spoon back into his bowl.

Ugh, he was pathetic. “If we weren’t going away, I’d challenge you to a rematch. _With_ a bet. Since you’re _rolling_ in the dough now it won’t hurt too much when we wipe the court with you.”

He made a startled face, mouthing _what?_ at her and completely breaking character. Fortunately, Dot leaned around Roger and cut in, eyes gleaming. As Jemma had known that she would. “You’re quite a sleeper, aren’t you, Mr. Fitz? And you never breathed a word all this time! I probably ought to feel embarrassed at the things I insinuated about you in front of Mr. Macpherson.”

“He wouldn’t have cared,” Fitz mumbled.

Jemma felt an urge to pat his knee, but refrained. “You’re never telling me my mother allowed that.”

“What had she to say about it? She was already upstairs.”

Tingling with anticipation, Jemma began circling her prey. She had _known_ that Dot wouldn’t be too drunk to remember what had happened last night. The trick now was to pull it out of her without scaring her or Roger into a snit. “If you’re going to lie, Dot, you might as well make it plausible. My mother and Macpherson walked up the stairs together.”

“Darling little Jemma, don’t you know I never lie? That’s why everybody’s afraid of me. For your information, Miss Einstein, he _did_ go upstairs with Edith, but came back down a few minutes later to get Tony’s keys. Apparently Peacock was locked—”

“Locked already?” Fitz asked. “What time was that?”

Jemma wouldn’t have dared ask that question, but Fitz—newly palatable with the sudden infusion of funds—received one of Dot’s terrifying lioness smiles. “Well, Roger was out sulking in the garden and the Weatherbys were still having their row somewhere—at least, I assume so, though Sonia did come in while your uncle was still in the room.”

“I wasn’t sulking,” Roger protested, pouting. “I was smoking.”

“So he didn’t just get the keys and go back up?”

“No, he and Tony were discussing something science-y that I was bored by. Something Macpherson kept telling Tony to be quiet about. Really, he was rather rude.”

Fitz stilled beside her. “Oh, well, projects are a touchy subject for us. You never know when someone might want to steal them—I don’t mean you, Miss Huntington-Smith, only that it’s a habit.”

His voice was high and quick like he was trying to skirt past a subject. Without looking at him, Jemma pulled the conversation back on course. “It can’t have been too late, anyway. Mr. Weatherby said he went to bed about 11:30.” They knew that was a lie already, but it was a decent trap.

Dot fell right into it. “Not he! It must have been midnight when he came in and saw his wife cosy on the couch with Stark, whispering in his ear and giggling to beat the band. It was shocking.” She couldn’t even make a stab at primness, ghoulish glee writ large across her face. “I thought Macpherson’s eyes would fall out of his head. But apparently he didn’t trust Mr. Stark with us two young ladies, because he stayed until Weatherby came in.”

“Quite right, too,” Roger muttered. “No man is safe around women like you.”

“Ho, now,” Fitz said, insulted on behalf of women. She shushed him with a tap of her foot under the table.

Dot rounded on Roger, despite the fact that she was already looking at him. “Certainly not if they wish to keep any petty cash. But then in your case that’s really _any_ person, isn’t it? You should have gone to bed with your auntie, like a good little boy. Perhaps then you wouldn’t have a need to make ill-advised jabs at men of ten times your consequence.”

Roger sat up straight, his face red and quivering. “Are you giving me advice on how to be a good little boy? You? That’s rich.”

“What _the hell_ does that mean?”

 “Is everything all right down there?”

Their four heads snapped in unison to Mrs. Simmons, who had raised one terrifying eyebrow as a warning. Fitz quailed under it. They would have to work on that in future. Tossing her head, Dot called back, “No, Edith, everything’s fine! Roger and I are just having a debate about relative morality.”

“Perhaps a subject of more general interest. There’s no reason for barbarism. Let’s see…”

Jemma could just see her careful plan unraveling. “Oh, it’s of general interest, Mother. Mr. Fitz and I are discussing it as well.” She aimed a kick at Fitz’s ankle. “Right?” He yelped. It _almost_ sounded like a yes, she thought, hoping her mother would let it slide. Skewering Fitz with a side-long glance, Edith swooped into Stark and Mary’s conversation and carried him off. Sighing in relief, Jemma turned back to her food without even making a face at Fitz. Best to lay low for a minute until the attention was successfully diverted.

A minute later, Fitz bumped her knee with his, directing her attention back to Dot and Roger’s whispered conversation with a quick flick of his eyes.

“I know what I heard, Dot. Who else would be out on the landing at three in the morning fumbling with their keys? There’s no reason unless—”

“It takes one to know one, Roger, and you and I _both_ know one.”

“ _I_ was going downstairs to get a drink. Uncle Robert keeps all of the good stuff under lock and key, I have to get at it in the middle of the night.”

“Ugh, you’re nothing but alcohol at this point. How are you even still alive?”

Jemma and Fitz agreed silently.

“I wasn’t on the landing. I don’t know what you heard, but it wasn’t me.” She sniffed. “Not that it matters. I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

“Are we engaged or aren’t we?”

“When you act like this I wish you would get out of my sight.”

His jaw worked back and forth like a piston building up steam for his final answer: “Your wish is my command.” He shoved back from the table and stood up, throwing his napkin into his bowl. “Pardon me, Aunt Edith. I find I’m not hungry. And I mean that to sting!”

He actually slammed the door behind him, rattling the silver and stopping all conversation. Edith shut her eyes, no doubt cursing herself for her generous invitation, but recovered quickly. “I do apologise. He’s liable to tummy problems and they make him a little fractious, I’m afraid; best just ignore him. He’ll be all right momentarily.”

The room returned to burbling, though Jemma noticed gazes flitting back and forth between the door and the empty chair beside her until the soup plates were cleared. Only Dot stared fixedly at her food, lifting her spoon to her mouth and sinking it back in the bowl as mechanically as an automaton.

“Perhaps she feels badly,” Fitz said quietly half-way through the meat.

“Dot? Unlikely.”

He peered around her and shrugged. “She was kind to me earlier.”

“Because she found out you have money.”

“Before that.”

“Dot. Really.” She matched his nod with a shake of her head. “Then she was only doing it for mischief. I’ve never known her to be kind in all the years we’ve been in the same circles, and she was there for my rabbit blood party.”

His face blanched, but he didn’t ask. “You’d know better than I would. I was only thinking, now she’s quarreled with Mrs. Weatherby, she might be looking for a confidant.”

Oh, clever Fitz! Dot would need someone to pour invective at; if Jemma could fill that void who knew what kind of helpful information they could obtain? She regarded him seriously. “You’re much cleverer than I am.”

“No, no,” he protested, turning slightly pink. “Not possible.”

She tucked in the corners of her mouth, trying to hide her pleased smile and probably failing. It was hard to remember the last time someone other than her father had called her clever without it being a veiled insult. Buoyed by the compliment, she took a minute longer than she should have to decide on a course of action.

“You know,” she began in an undertone, leaning across the empty seat, “Roger can be an idiot, but I really think he cares for you.”

Dot pinned her like a bug to a card. “Well, he oughtn’t. Things don’t work that way. One doesn’t ever care for the person one marries.”

“Like the Weatherbys, you mean,” Jemma said, remembering that morning’s conversation. “I don’t suppose you know why, exactly, they decided to tie the knot? It doesn’t seem that they offer each other very much.”

Dot rolled her eyes dramatically. “Darling, what I don’t know about the Weatherbys could fill a book. She just popped up from nowhere like a weed, swept in and swept him up and weaseled her way into Society within the space of a year. No one knows anything about her before that. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

And what Dot couldn’t find out probably wasn’t there to be found; even a half-moldy rumour would do for her. “Did she just come over then? Perhaps she has records in America.”

“It’s probably not terribly important. Any number of jumped-up Americans have come over since their country’s so depressing these days. Tony was telling me earlier he likes England so well he’s thinking of expanding and having a branch—is that what they’re called?—over here.”

“But we already have Macpherson,” she said, “surely they’re enough for any one country?”

Scoffing, Dot waved her fork in the air. “As though Macpherson will last any time at all, now that your boyfriend is in charge. He hasn’t got what it takes.”

The clinks and scrapes to her left stopped for a second, then resumed with fervour as Fitz determinedly made enough noise to cover that he had been listening to the conversation. Jemma’s heart cracked, keeping her response trapped in her throat. How dare Dot say such a thing? She didn’t know Fitz at all to be able to make that assessment—which was dead wrong, anyway, as Fitz would be excellent at anything he chose to be. She was sure of that. What did Dot know about it? “If you’ll excuse me for saying, I don’t really think you have the expertise to decide that.”

“Oh, and you do?” Dot was amused. “I think you’ve got yourself a pair of rose-coloured spectacles.”

Why did she persist in attempting to turn this into a commentary on her feelings towards Fitz? Whatever they were, it was irrelevant at this point. She was only seeking justice on his behalf. “No, of course I haven’t got the expertise. But there is someone here who does. Mr. Biggs!”

The solicitor pointed himself towards her, forgoing all pretense of listening to whatever Mrs. Weatherby was saying. “Miss Simmons?”

Suddenly aware she had the attention of the whole table, she took a deep breath and flashed her most disarming smile. “Perhaps you can settle an argument for Miss Huntington-Smith and me. There is no reason that Macpherson Industries should self-destruct in the wake of Mr. Macpherson’s sad demise, is there?” Beside her, Fitz leaned forward, his mouth in a tight, nervous line.

Mr. Biggs answered unhesitatingly. “Certainly not. Mr. Fitz is more than capable. I firmly anticipate that MI will continue to lead the world in production as we always have done before.”

“There now,” she said, turning to Dot, “you see I was right.”

The other woman had a malicious spark in her eye. “Mr. Biggs, I think you’ve overstated yourself. You have to admit that when it comes to weapons, Stark Industries is the world leader.”

“There was no offence meant,” he said, turning to Stark.

“No offence taken,” Stark said. “You have all kinds of industries I haven’t even touched on. Weapons are my thing, the bigger the better. You may lead the world in production, but I don’t think you’ve ever made a weapon like Armageddon.” A weapon named after the battle that would destroy the world didn’t seem something to brag about, but Jemma kept quiet. “We’re working on something now, in fact—”

Sonia cut him off with a loud sigh. “Oh, please, let’s not spoil dinner with _more_ weapons talk. David’s talked my ears off about them for the last six months. Anyway, everybody knows there isn’t going to be a war, so making weapons is just silly. I’d rather talk about…laundry soap, if it comes to it. Isn’t Macpherson famous for laundry soap?”

She directed the question at Fitz, who gulped and looked to Mr. Biggs. “Um, yeah, we have made some good progress with washing powders recently, but we started as a weapons designer during the War. We still do a lot of that, actually. Maybe not as much as Mr. Stark, but if there _was_ a war—not that there will be, but if there was—we’d be able to produce anything we needed, I think.”

“Absolutely,” Mr. Biggs affirmed, nodding. “In fact Macpherson is now in better hands than it was before, in that regard. Fitz has technical understanding and brilliance to drive the designs that the former president, sadly, lacked. He was…an administrator.”

“Sort of,” Fitz whispered, making Jemma snort.

“So there is no reason at all to believe MI is in any trouble whatsoever. Far from it.”

Edith waved the butler to come clear the course. “Well, I’m sure we’re all glad to hear that. Mr. Biggs, I don’t suppose you’ve seen _The Vicar of Bray_?”

“No, ma’am, I am unfamiliar with that gentleman. Where is Bray, exactly?”

Edith kept conversation general and innocuous for the rest of the meal, leaving Fitz and Simmons no time to either continue their subtle interrogation or discuss what they had already discovered. Jemma ate quickly and without thought, expending all her mental energy to remain concentrated on the new information rather than the man seated beside her. There was plenty of it: Stark’s new weapon and plans to branch in Britain, Mrs. Weatherby’s mysterious origins, whatever it was that Roger had heard on the stairs. So much they hadn’t known before, and so much that didn’t seem to fit into the case as they had lain out in their table. No doubt it would all make sense if they could just manage to go over it—between the two of them, there didn’t seem to be much of anything they couldn’t sort out. Except, apparently, whose elbow would go where. “Sorry,” she mumbled as they bumped for the thousandth time and lying through her teeth for the nine hundredth. She should be sorry, perhaps. But whatever static lay between them could make itself known through the layers of his dinner jacket and her tall gloves, and it was a not unpleasant situation.

“My fault,” Fitz said, not sure it was but not caring. The shocks sent a pleasant buzz to his brain, cutting through the fog of facts and lighting up his mental landscape like a fairground. Since they had touched in the library he hadn’t wanted to think of anything but her, puzzling out what that look meant and if it signified any truth to Dot’s assertion that Jemma might possibly allow herself to care for him. But there was too much else to consider: the meeting with Whitehall, Stark’s intentions to expand his company to Britain, the apparent fact that both Simmons and Mr. Biggs had every confidence that he would be able to run MI and make a success of it. They were wrong, of course. He wasn’t cut out for that kind of work at all. But the mere fact that they thought he _could_ was tremendously invigorating. At the very least, it gave him confidence that perhaps this murder would sort out for the best, despite how bleak and convoluted it looked at present. If he and Simmons could just sit down and go over all the evidence, surely they would be able to come up with something.

Dinner done, those who had permission to leave the party gathered in the hall, small grips in hand. David Weatherby stood at some distance from the other group, decidedly not looking at them as he waited for Sir Robert to retrieve his driving goggles from upstairs. Sonia bid her husband a casual goodbye, submitting to his embrace without any appearance of enjoying it.

“You will remember what we discussed,” he asked somewhat desperately.

She rolled her eyes. “Of course. Honestly, David.”

As she disappeared into the drawing room, Fitz was embarrassed to see the naked emotion on Weatherby’s face. The blighter might be a truly awful human being, but he did appear to care deeply for a woman who, as Simmons said, didn’t give three straws for him. Fitz felt a sudden pang of sympathy. Perhaps it would have been better for the man if he had ascribed to Dot’s theory of marriage. Less chance of being hurt that way. But then, he thought as he watched Jemma very nearly make Mr. Biggs laugh, perhaps self-preservation vanished where love was concerned.

Sir Robert came downstairs, swinging the goggles by the strap. “Ready to go, Mr. Weatherby?”

Simmons made him turn to face her so she could button up his old-fashioned duster. “Are you sure you want to take him, dad? It’s not a problem for me to leave Rosalind here and take the Austin. It would be easy as anything to drop Mr. Weatherby at the station.”

Fitz did not think he was imagining the way her nose wrinkled at the prospect of riding even three miles with Mr. Weatherby’s disapproving grimace. Sir Robert, a visible twinkle in his eye, shook his head. “It’s three miles out of your way. It will already be late enough by the time you get to college; I don’t want it to be any later than it must. And Mr. Fitz is anxious to get his rest, I think?”

After sleeping poorly before a six a.m. wake-up and a full day of tennis in addition to the emotional and mental strain he had been under today, bed sounded like literal heaven. “I could go all night if I had to,” he protested gamely.

“No,” Mr. Biggs said hastily. “No, no, anything that gets us to Town quickly is preferable.”

Jemma gave him a secret smile from under her eyelashes. “Someone is a bit of a grumpy-boots in the morning, I assume? We can’t all be daisy-fresh, I suppose.”

Instantly, his brain dredged up a picture of her standing over him first thing that morning, the sun behind her making her look like nothing less than an angel and a warm glow in her eyes that had sparked a twin in his heart. Had she really been that beautiful, or had everything that happened today colored his memory?  Catching Mr. Biggs’s skeptical nostril flare, he quickly looked away before answering. “It’s a scientific fact, Simmons. The human machine, according to your argument, needs a certain amount of sleep to repair itself.”

Mr. Weatherby cut in crossly, looking at his watch. “Which will be impossible to get on a train. Can we go, Sir Robert? If we don’t get there soon I’ll have to take the 11.17 and that would require a change.”

“Of course, of course.” Sir Robert kissed his daughter’s cheek. “Drive safely, Gem.”

“I always do, dad.”

Five miles down the road, Fitz rather thought that was an understatement. She went a consistent ten miles below the speed limit, took corners at a crawl, sounded her horn every time she approached an intersection, and casually flashed her lights at anything moving even if it was obviously a tree.  He could almost hear Mr. Biggs grinding his teeth in the back. No doubt he was mentally calculating how many minutes of sleep were being lost and converting them to a percentage to measure how successful he would be in the morning. Fitz didn’t care how long it took. The open car kept him from speaking to Simmons in anything less than a shout, but he could watch the way the nearly-full moon flickered over her face. Admire her concentration. Enjoy the smell of lavender mixed with the fragrant night air and the sound of the tune she kept time to on the steering wheel—a familiar little song that niggled at the back of his brain. What was it?

“I thought you didn’t like jazz!” he shouted at her once he had placed it.

She didn’t take her eyes of the road as she answered. “ _All Through the Night_ doesn’t count! Anyway, I was thinking of dancing! Can I help it if I hum while I’m thinking of dancing?”

It absolutely counted, particularly depending on the arrangement, but he wasn’t going to argue. She was thinking about dancing—perhaps about their agreement from yesterday? God knew he had been actively avoiding it since he first learned what she felt like in his hands. But if she was thinking about it, then maybe…maybe he could allow himself to do the same.

“I would prefer you thought about the road!” Mr. Biggs bellowed. “Perhaps we might reach Town at a decent hour!”

“Sorry Mr. Biggs!” She stepped on the gas just a touch, enough to be faster but still well below the limit. Then, shooting Fitz a glimmer that went straight to his heart and lodged there, she deliberately resumed humming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The "All Through the Night" Simmons hums is not by Cindy Lauper (a song I didn't even know existed before this week). It's the version by Cole Porter, which runs as follows:
> 
> The day is my enemy, the night my friend,  
> For I'm always so alone till the day draws to an end;  
> But when the sun goes down and the moon comes through,  
> To the monotone of the evening's drone I'm all alone with you.
> 
> All through the night,  
> I delight in your love,  
> All through the night you're so close to me!  
> All through the night,  
> From a height far above,  
> You and your love brings me ecstasy!
> 
> When dawn comes to waken me,  
> You're never there at all!  
> I know you've forsaken me  
> Till the shadows fall;  
> But then once again I can dream, I've the right  
> To be close to you all through the night.
> 
> Think what you will about her choice. ;)


	23. While They're Apart

Fitz slept the sleep of the righteous that night, out like a light the instant his head hit the pillow and without even a good dream to bother him for the six blissful hours from one a.m. to when he pried open his eyes at seven. Part of that was flat-out exhaustion, but he would be remiss not to allow that fully a third of it was the softness of Uncle George’s mattress. No wonder the man was never to work on time. This bed was like reclining on a fluffy cloud. He needed that, after sitting up with Mr. Biggs until all hours of the night going over classified blueprints and corporate policy. It had been necessary, of course, since there was no earthly chance he would make it through today’s meetings without that information, but overall he rather felt like he could sleep for another four hours at least.

A rap at the door knocked him out of his reverie. Silently entering, his uncle’s valet Lane padded across the floor on cat-like tread. Not even the china on the tray he carried made a _clink_. “Good morning, Mr. Fitz. We weren’t sure what you’d prefer for breakfast so we brought you a bit of everything.”

He sat up quickly, silken covers falling in a pool to the floor. The tray, set delicately across his lap, was warm enough that he wished them back again. “Breakfast in bed?” he asked, staring down at enough sausages and egg and toast and bacon to sate even his morning rumbles.

“Yes, sir, that was usual with the late master. Will you prefer not?”

He most definitely would prefer not; the very sight of the man picking his trousers and socks off the floor made him vow never to tell his mother about this. She’d think he was getting above himself. “Um, the dining room will be fine if I stop here again.”

Lane paused with the drapes halfway open. “Mr. Biggs gave the staff to understand you would be making this house your permanent residence, sir. Is that incorrect?”

“Oh, well—” Bother Mr. Biggs. “My plans aren’t settled. Firmly. At present.”

“Very good, sir. Mr. Biggs is in the study, sir, and there is a trunk call for you.” He gestured to the phone standing on the bedside table. “It is already connected.”

Shoving the tray to the side of the giant bed, he rolled over to pick up the receiver, clearing his throat to get the sleep out and not quite succeeding. “H’lo?”

“Fitz?”

“Jemma!” He had a sudden desire to dive for the blankets and cover up the primrose silk pajamas he had found laid out for him last night. His free hand rose of its own volition to tamp down his hair. “Simmons, I mean. Is everything all right?”

“Yes, of course.” Amusement twined through her words. “I only wanted to be sure to catch you before your meetings. We didn’t get a chance last night to determine when we would meet to go back.”

Of course, it was just business. There was no reason for his heart to be pumping like a pneumatic actuator. “Oh, right. Well, I’ve my Whitehall meeting at ten and a meeting with the Board at one. What time will you be done?”

“My tutorial is over at two. Perhaps I’ll just motor down after? I could have tea in town.”

Doing quick calculations, he saw an opportunity. If she drove as cautiously as she had last night, she would reach town around the same time as he anticipated being out from the Board. Even to be back at Verinder Hall by dinner, they wouldn’t have to leave London right away. If he could only phrase it right… “My board meeting shouldn’t be very long, I don’t think. If you like, um, maybe you can come up to the office and I’ll give you tea?”

“Oh!”

Goodness knew he had heard enough of her tiny-yet-meaningful exclamations that he should be able to interpret them, but without a facial expression he was at a loss. Was she pleased? Offended? Sorry for him? “Or not, if you don’t want to. It was only an idea. I thought we might go over the data we got yesterday but, yeah, if you’d rather—”

“Fitz!”

He stopped babbling, arrested by what he could not help but recognise as a combination of exasperation and fondness in her voice.

“It’s a good idea. I’d love to come. What is the address?”

He rattled it off automatically. “Just ask for the president’s office, I expect that’s where I’ll be and I’ll tell them to expect you.”

“Goodness, what privilege! I’d better watch I don’t get a puffed head.”

Half preoccupied with what to order for tea and half astounded that she would consider a connection with him anything to be proud about, he spoke without really thinking. “If you haven’t got one yet after spending your whole life five hundred times prettier and smarter than everyone else, I think you’re probably all right.”

It took a minute for the answer to come. When it did, it sounded a bit breathless. “So, whenever you’re done, then. I would wish you luck but I don’t think you’ll need it.”

Remembering all that had to pass before he saw her again, he groaned. “A little wouldn’t hurt.”

“Good luck then, Fitz.”

Fitz felt a warm glow spread through his belly that had nothing to do with the light now streaming through his windows and falling on his face. It felt as though the blood in his veins had turned to molten gold and every cell of his brain was now waked up and ready to work, like it would be the easiest thing in the world to roll out of bed and slay two or three dragons before breakfast. Suddenly, he understood idiot knights riding into battle with their ladies’s handkerchiefs to protect them. “Goodbye then, Simmons.”

Jemma hung up the receiver and sighed. Why she felt vaguely melancholic was a mystery, but feel it she did; the world looked drab and dull, even with the early morning light filling the porter’s box. “Thank you, Padgett. You’ll add it to my account?”

The porter nodded, already marking it in the ledger. “I hope it was worth extending the call four times, miss.”

It would have been worth it to wait twice as long and pay three times as much, though she didn’t tell Padgett that. Instead, she asked if the papers had come.

“Yes, miss. The murder is the top story, of course. I don’t suppose you have any idea who did it? The papers are suggesting it’s the secretary, but—”

“That’s a horrid rumour,” she cut off sharply. “Mr. Fitz was with me when it happened.”

“Yes, miss. Only it’s hard to see who else might have wanted to kill him.”

“Speculation is the enemy of calm,” she retorted, copping one of her mother’s mottoes to live by, and closed the gate door behind her with a brisk tug. Feeling instantly ashamed, she opened it enough to peep her head in. “Sorry, Padgett.”

He waved a forgiving hand. “It’s all right, miss. I expect it’s a bit of a sore subject.”

It was, of course. She found it maddening that the case was still unsolved. Padgett with only the newspapers to go by couldn’t be expected to have a realistic idea, but she and Fitz with their careful investigation and observations should surely have at least a decent guess. Instead she felt as though they were stumbling around with gauze over their eyes, seeing the shapes of things but none of the details. So Mr. Weatherby was trying to hide how long he had been out of the room—what did that signify? So Roger was in debt far over his head—what bearing did it have? Like the blind man in the Bible, all they could see were men like trees walking. Yes, that was a sore subject.

But that hadn’t been what had caused her to snap at Padgett, and she couldn’t pretend to herself it was. The murder, after all, was an external problem, complicated by personalities but ultimately straightforward with what would no doubt turn out to be a straightforward solution. Feelings weren’t like that. Even if she had a decent understanding of her own—by no means a given, as she was still uncertain what to call the odd conglomeration of fondness, intellectual excitement, and attraction that surged up at various times—how could she even begin to guess at his? He had asked her for tea, but it was only to go over the clues. He had paid her a compliment that had made her flush and grin from ear, but it seemed like he hadn’t even realised he had said it. Lord, she couldn’t help herself from being as close to him as propriety allowed, and while he didn’t move away he didn’t reciprocate, either. What was a girl to make of any of that?

She puzzled over the problems all morning, barricading herself in her room so none of the girls on her staircase would drop in for a gossip and cutting Hall entirely in favour of a wrinkled apple. If she would snap at Padgett whom she rather liked, it would be better to keep away from the silly magpies she merely tolerated. As it was she had to fend off the scandal-vultures all the way to her tutor’s rooms. They surrounded her with flapping tongues and rustling papers, chittering a million questions: _Wasn’t it awful? Weren’t you terrified? Does your family know Mr. Fitz personally? Is he as handsome as his picture?_ No, she thought, glancing at the papers they were waving in her face, he wasn’t nearly as severe and brooding as that ancient group shot made him appear. Then again, it didn’t show the deep sapphire blue of his eyes or the eager smile he had when he was making a joke, either. And thank goodness—he was _her_ discovery to admire and protect, not theirs. Pushing her way through the crowd, she begged tardiness and tried not to literally run from their questions. If she could only make it to her tutorial, she would find refuge in science.

Halfway through the discussion of her essay, her tutor looked over her half-glasses. “Are you pre-occupied with something, Simmons?”

She chuckled, a high titter that wouldn’t convince anyone. “Me? No. Only _fascinated_ by the implications of the experiment.”

“Mm.” Miss Weaver rose to refill the teapot. “I suppose it is possible that powdered bone might be made to grow new ones for transplant, but it does seem unlikely.”

Jemma hastily attempted to recall her last few sentences and flushed when she did so. “I’m sorry, Miss Weaver. I suppose I am a bit distracted.”

“And rightfully so. It can’t be pleasant to be smack in the middle of a murder investigation.”

“It isn’t that.” Oh, if only that was all. “It’s…” She shook her head, unable to explain. Some girls, she knew, used their tutors as confidantes, but she and Miss Weaver had never been like that. They had a firm, respectful relationship built on science and nothing else. But perhaps she might offer general advice? “Professor, what do you do when a problem you’re working on is at an impasse with no clear way forward? You’ve got all the data but you can’t make sense of what it means?”

“Goodness, has that never happened to you yet?” The tutor shook her head. “You don’t do anything. Nearly always, that kind of block means there’s a piece of data you’re not understanding correctly and until it shakes loose you’re stymied.”

That would never do. “How do you shake it loose?”

“You don’t, Simmons. It happens by itself when you least expect it.”

“But we can’t wait for it to sort itself out,” she said, not exactly certain what she meant “it” to signify.

Miss Weaver raised her eyebrows. “We? In that case you most _certainly_ can’t do anything. Forcing that kind of thing always leads to trouble. For now, I don’t think we’ll gain anything from further discussion. Your essay is good. You’re free to leave and continue wrestling with whatever it is.”

Jemma thanked her and raced back to her room, shucking her cap and gown to jam a hat on her head and grab the parcel of antidote notes she had gathered to show Fitz in case they had time. Obviously they would primarily be discussing the murder, but as Miss Weaver said, sometimes one just had to wait for things to sort themselves out. And there was really no point in spoiling a pleasant tea with talk of corpses. Probably Fitz would prefer to wait until they were done. She was thinking of him, really.

She drove to Town much less carefully than was her wont, finding her speedometer ticking up past the speed limit far more often than hovering below and entirely neglecting to blow her horn at intersections. It wasn’t intentional; she just happened to come out of a daydream and realise she had blown past a bicyclist or a cow. It was lucky there weren’t any road agents out or she would have been in trouble. Once in the City, she managed to rein in her wayward thoughts and find Macpherson Industries with very little trouble at all. The shining steel and glass building stood out from the brick ones on either side with a smug opulence matched only by the attitude of the desk attendant who demanded to know her business.

“I’m here to see Mr. Fitz,” she said, lifting her chin. “Jemma Simmons. I’m expected.”

The man became instantly contrite. “Of course, Miss Simmons. If you’ll just sign the book, please, we’ll have the lift operator run you up.”

The office revealed when the lift doors opened was lavish, thickly carpeted and opulent in every detail. From behind a shining mahogany desk that rivaled her father’s in size, a slight and balding man stood to greet her. “Miss Simmons, I presume? Mr. Fitz told us to expect you.”

A little taken aback by his American accent, she stuck out a hand hesitantly. “I’m afraid he didn’t tell me to expect you, Mr. ...”

“Coulson,” he said, shaking her hand firmly. “I’m afraid he didn’t know; the agency just sent me over this morning. I’m Mr. Fitz’s new secretary.”

Feeling a bit sorry for a man of his age who had never risen further than temp work, she expressed herself pleased to meet him and gestured to one of the leather chairs behind her. “Shall I just wait here, then, or…”

“Oh, no. Mr. Fitz was quite specific that you wait in his office. He said to tell you that the archives on his desk will be of interest to you.”

The gas mask research! Clutching her parcel to her chest, she worked very hard to keep her voice steady. “Very good. Thank you, Mr. Coulson.”

If possible, the room she now entered was even more luxurious than the one she had just left, more modern in style but decorated with the kind of attention to detail that signified a great deal of money. All the glamour was wasted on her, though; her attention was drawn instantly to the browned and dog-eared files set on the glass desk in two neat stacks. To one side rested a pad of paper, two sharpened pencils, and a fountain pen. Lined up between them at perfectly right angles was a hastily written note:

_There’s no point in being responsible for this monstrosity if I can’t do what I want with old research. Tea is coming at 3:15. You can start without me if I’m not here yet. I’ll be out as soon as I can—F._   

 

He was _such_ a thoughtful man, she thought warmly as she read the note through a third time. In the midst of what had to be one of the most difficult days of his life, he had spent time making sure she was amused and fed while she waited. His mother, whose sad but kind face looked out at her from a leather picture frame, should be proud. She would tell him so when he came in. In the meantime, she had a stack of information that was a gift better than Christmas. Pulling up the desk chair, she rubbed her hands together gleefully before pulling the first file towards her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Realistically, I don't think an Oxford college of the period would have a black person as a don (which is what they call professors) but I needed a female teacher, so there she is! 
> 
> I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news:I am going on vacation next week so there won't be any new chapters posted. The good news: there WILL be another chapter on Friday and it is a monster, chock-full to the brim with investigating and flirting. I am hopeful that the extra words will tide you over until I come back again.


	24. The President's Office

Deep in the crumbling pages, she didn’t even look up when Fitz dragged into the room an hour later. The board meeting had given him a headache worse than any he had suffered under Macpherson. Not only were there twenty more of them, but he had to walk the careful line between giving them enough information to soothe their panic and keeping enough back that they remained ignorant of the project’s true nature. Even with Mr. Biggs at his back, it was beyond nerve-wracking. All he wanted out of life was to go somewhere that he could close his eyes and not have to answer any questions at all, much less ones of national importance. At least, that was what he wanted until he entered the office and found her there, pouring over a file as intently as if her life depended on it. Half-hidden behind the no-longer neat stacks topped by a precariously balanced tea-tray, she had dropped the pen to encircle her throat with both hands. The furrow between her eyes deepened from “concerned” to “distressed” even as he stood there watching. What could there be in the old files to make her look like that? “Is it as badly done as all that?”

“Oh, Fitz!” She started, knocking the pen to the side. “Bother, I’ve made a blot!”

“Extra blotting paper in—”

She was already pulling it out of the wide, shallow drawer. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Not long.” Best not to admit to staring. “Did you get more files from the archive?”

“Yes, sorry, I had Mr. Coulson get them for me. I was looking—have you seen this, Fitz? It’s horrible.”

“The methodology?” he asked, coming over to the desk to try and read the documents upside down.

“Well, _that’s_ awful too, but no—these deaths.”

“ _What_?”

“Look.” Since she didn’t turn them around for him to see, he had to move around the other side of the desk and lean over her shoulder. This close, the scent of her hair was almost overwhelming. It was a struggle to concentrate on the admittedly horrific thing she was showing him. “They tested the masks with animals at first, but when they thought they had something that worked, they put it on people.”

He scanned the pages as quickly as possible. “All right. What’s wrong with that?”

Flipping over to another page, she shook the two in her hand at him. “It wasn’t ready! They had checked it against flesh but not anything actually breathing. There was something wrong with the filter—it moved when the subjects inhaled—and the test subjects were killed.”

“ _What_?” he asked again, unable to find the right words to express his outrage. “Test _subjects_. They did it twice? Or two at once?”

Her head in her hands, she stared down at the archives like she could change what was written if she concentrated hard enough. “Twice. They assumed there was a problem with the first mask, which of course there was, so they ran the experiment again.”

He cursed fluidly, and she nodded as if she’d like to join him. Leaning back from the desk, she sighed and shoved one of the files aside. “I wanted to know what Macpherson Industries had done for the families, so I asked Mr. Coulson to find me the personnel files. He appears quite competent; I think you should keep him. But from all I can tell, they only packed their effects and sent them off to the next of kin, no financial remuneration or wreath at the funeral or anything. I’m sorry to say it, but your company is rather rotten.”

He wished he could disagree, but she was correct as usual. Human decency required some acknowledgement of that kind of tragedy. When his father died, for example, his commanding officer had sent a heartfelt letter that his mother had read thin, and it had hardly been the lieutenant’s fault. Receiving nothing at all must have been insult to injury. If only there was a way to make amends. Better too little too late than nothing at all, surely. Coming to a decision, he perched on the edge of the desk and reached across the piles for the telephone. “Mr. Coulson?”

“Speaking.”

The cool, deferential response brought Fitz up short. Ordering the tea had been hard enough; why did he think he could demand anything else? The man was old enough to be his father and he visibly projected the kind of competence Fitz had lacked in his former position, forget about now. Only Simmons’s encouraging nod gave him the guts to ask rather than stammer. “Um, I’m going to need your help finding some people. It will be complicated because the only information we have is twenty years old.”

“That’s fine, sir. Who do you need?”

“The families of—” He groped blindly for the correct file until Simmons put it in his outstretched hand. Craning his neck sideways, he read “Nigel Thomas and John Donaldson. Here are their last known addresses.”

Coulson repeated them back. “I will do what I can, sir.”

“Thank you, Mr. Coulson.”

He hung up and let his shoulders fall. “That was awfully directive of you,” Simmons observed.

“Well. Have to make sure I get it in before the board throws me out with a vote of no confidence.”

“Oh, Fitz! Not really. The meetings can’t have gone that badly.”

“No,” he admitted. The Whitehall meeting had even gone rather well, according to Mr. Biggs in the cab afterwards. The board members, used to a Fitz who cringed in the corner, were overall more skeptical, but even they had granted tentative agreement to move forward. He just couldn’t shake the feeling that everything was about to go to pieces.

“No,” she repeated with a smug smirk. “I told you you wouldn’t need good luck.”

“How do you know it wasn’t you that did it?”

“Me? What does it have to do with me?” Leaning forward, she caught his eye with her earnest ones and touched his knee lightly. “Fitz, you’re extraordinary; you don’t need luck or anything else to succeed.” He ducked his head, knowing without a doubt that a blush was slowly making its ruddy way up the back of his neck. Removing her hand quickly, Simmons cleared her throat. “Would you like some tea? I’ve eaten all the jam roll, I’m afraid.”

“I had Mr. Coulson get it for you, so that’s fine. Yeah, I would like some tea.” She nodded and went to pour, only to stop at his horrified squawk. “Simmons! What are you doing, pouring a boiling hot beverage over these irreplaceable, fragile documents?”

“I’ve been doing it all day, Fitz, and I haven’t spilt anything yet.”

“It only takes once,” he said, taking the teapot away firmly. If he shivered at the brush of their fingers, he didn’t think she noticed. Placing the pot back onto the tray, he carried the whole thing over to the side table and began fixing his cup. “I’m sorry I was so long. I wanted to give you a tour, but I don’t think we have time now.” He glanced quickly at his watch as he dropped in his fourth lump of sugar: five past four. “Is it really that late? We hardly have enough time to go over the clues.”

He turned around, still stirring, to find her staring dreamily at the blank wall behind him. “Simmons?”

“What? Oh.” Shaking herself back to attention, she held out her cup for a refill. “No, we don’t. But I’ve been thinking about it, and I’m not sure we have any new, firm clues. Aside from a few blanks to fill up on the table, all we have is questions.”

He took the cup and filled it, first pouring in the wrist-flick of milk she took before adding the tea. “Questions are good, to—”

“—to a point, agreed. But the inquest is tomorrow, Fitz, and I don’t think we’ve discovered a thing the police don’t already know.” She accepted the tea. “Thank you.”

Sliding into the chair Macpherson had kept for the rare occasions he was forced to have a meeting in the office, Fitz crammed a biscuit into his mouth before answering. There had been no time for lunch. “I doubt the inspector knows about Dot and Mrs. Weatherby’s row, or the mysterious man on the side of the road, or—”

She wrinkled her nose at his poor table manners, but didn’t comment. “What man on the side of the road?”

He explained as succinctly as possible, having forgotten that she missed Dot’s harangue on the tennis courts. She listened intently, brow furrowed. “It’s interesting,” she said finally, “but I can’t see how it relates. He could hardly have sneaked in to stuff the vent.” Sighing, she reached over to snag a biscuit from his plate. “There’s all sorts of questions like that about Mrs. Weatherby—things that are odd but probably irrelevant. I wish we knew more about her.”

“Perhaps we could find out,” he suggested. “There must be records of her _somewhere_ in the papers. You never know what might be important.”

“Neither of us has time, though.”

“But both of us have money. We could hire an investigator.”

Her eyes lit up. “What a good idea! Perhaps Mr. Coulson could find one for us. It might not get results before tomorrow but one never knows. As you said.”

The idea, shiny on the surface, lost some luster as he considered it further. “Of course the police will have already done that.”

“But they won’t have told us. Perhaps we’ll be able to fit some things together they won’t.”

“True,” he said, spirits rising again. Her optimism was positively catching. “All right, so much for the strange behaviour of Mrs. Weatherby. What else?”

She reached into the pocket of her skirt and drew out the notebook he’d lent her. It gave him an inordinate amount of pleasure to know she kept it so close—for safety’s sake, he knew, but even so. “The other important question, I think, is the keys. The Peacock door appears to have been locked and unlocked rather mysteriously all night. I’ve drawn up a timetable.”

Taking the book, he read:

Dinner to ? – Stark has keys, door LOCKED

? – door UNLOCKED for murderer [unless Weatherbys?]

11:30 – door LOCKED, Macp. retrieves keys from Stark

12:00a – Macp. locks door behind him

3:00a – Roger hears someone with keys on landing

He put his finger on the last line. “Could that have been the master keys?”

“The master!” she repeated, surprised, “no, I don’t see how it could have been. The master is a family secret. I don’t think anyone knows about them, outside of Mother, Dad, and I. And if they did they could hardly get into the desk.” Stopping abruptly, she made an uncomfortable face. “Bother, I shouldn’t have said that. I forgot you’re not to know all my secrets.”

“You can trust me.”

“I know, Fitz. I’m not worried. Just don’t tell Mother.”

Not likely. Edith had pointedly refused to speak to him all through dinner, leaving him with the impression that she felt betrayed that he turned out to be other than he seemed. “Could Dot have been lying, then? About it being her, I mean.”

Simmons shook her head. “Mrs. Weatherby said that no one believes anything Dot says, but that only shows she hasn’t been around long. Everything Dot says is at least partially true; it may be in the worst possible light, but there’s a kernel of truth at the root.”

“That’s a horribly mixed metaphor.”

“Ug, Fitz! You know what I mean.”

He did, but a joke felt necessary if he didn’t want to risk too much time considering what else Dot had said with a kernel of truth at its root. Forgetting—if such a thing was possible—what she had said to him at tennis, at dinner she had outright referred to him as Jemma’s boyfriend _to Jemma_. He had been too mortified at the time to notice if she had been corrected, but it hardly mattered if the even the general idea was true. Simmons, however, appeared to have forgotten all about it. “Fitz,” she asked, looking up from the notebook, “how did you get in yesterday morning? It was locked when I came; I had to sneak the master out of dad’s desk.”

“Picked the lock.”

Both her eyebrows shot up. “Picked the lock? In your sleep?”

“You’ve never been a scrawny swotter in a public school, Simmons. Yeah, I can pick a lock half asleep.”

“Girls in French boarding schools aren’t much kinder, I imagine.” Frowning, she moved on. “So that doesn’t advance us much. But _somebody_ had to get in _somehow_.”

“So we’re back to Mr. or Mrs. Weatherby,” he said, “or both of them together, I suppose. Either your mother left the door unlocked or they had a key—perhaps a skeleton? We can hardly pretend Mrs. Weatherby has lock-picking skills.”

“Not a skeleton key; they’re patent locks. But otherwise I suppose you’re right.” She picked up the pen and began jabbing at the blotting paper with it, her thoughtful frown getting deeper by the minute. “But it just doesn’t seem right, Fitz. What motive does either of them have? We’ve already agreed one doesn’t kill a man for flirting with one’s wife, and anyway that didn’t happen until after your uncle went up. But what else does David Weatherby care about?”

“You sat next to him at dinner. What did he talk about?”

The pen began making slow circles. “Defense, mainly. That’s his soapbox, isn’t it? At least that’s what his bill’s about, remember.”

“Yeah, I do.” Way back in the mists of memory, he did recall Miss Potts mentioning that. Defense. It was odd how many members of the house party had to do with it: Weatherby, Stark, Macpherson. At least, it was only planned to be two, but because of the Project there were three. The Project, which was now in jeopardy due to his uncle’s death…what was it Mr. Biggs said that he had wanted to ask Simmons about?

“The evening papers will have the text of his speech, I expect. I think he wanted to cut the defense budget by transferring our defense industries out of the country? I rather tuned out, honestly.”

He sat up suddenly, every nerve in his body tingling and his mind racing like a German Silver Arrow in the Grand Prix. Mr. Biggs had said _if the Project fails it will be the fault of the man that killed your uncle_. Weatherby couldn’t have known it would be his uncle in that room. But if he didn’t want the Government to spend money on Defense—which the Project would and had already necessitated—

“What?” Simmons asked, matching his posture. “You’ve thought of something; what is it?”

Slowly, Fitz, carefully. “Would Mr. Weatherby have known Stark would be at the party?”

“Yes, I think it was common knowledge. At least Mother would have used it to sweeten the invitation.”

He leapt to his feet, too agitated to remain in the chair. Placing one hand on his hip, he brought the other to pinch the bridge of his nose as he thought. “If he knew, that would give him time to figure out the plan. Oh, only, he wouldn’t know about the bathroom and the vent—”

“Yes, he would.” Simmons slowly rose. “He’s been to Verinder Hall before—it’s positively disgusting how eager he is to mix with the Right Sort—it was before he was married but Mother would never put an MP lower than Hawk. But Fitz, I don’t understand—”

“Defense.”

She stared at him a moment longer, still confused. Then, in a flash, understanding lit up her face. “Oh, Fitz! Because of the branch? But, no, that doesn’t make sense, that would be an American interest—”

“No, Simmons: the Project.”

She came around the desk to stand in front of him, hands out beseechingly. “What project?”

He started pacing, the words spilling out without regard for their classified status. “It’s a weapons system Stark and Macpherson are building together—new kinds of bombs and planes to drop them from and carriers to transfer them around on and tanks and…oh, Simmons, it’s a major overhaul of both of our countries’ defense systems, based on a new technology Stark’s thought up with something called an arc reactor.”

Her eyes were very wide in her face. “How exciting—and terrible. But that would be classified, wouldn’t it? How could David Weatherby know about it?”

“He couldn’t have known details, but if he’s watching at all he’ll have known something was happening—”

 “—and want to stop it.”

“And what better way—”

“—than to remove one of the parties!”

In the course of the conversation they had been moving steadily closer to each other without noticing, too carried away by the thrill of discovery to care. Coming to the end of the thought, he realised that they were now sharing the same square yard of carpet, facing each other and much closer than they had been in the bathroom, and he wasn’t sure as he looked down into her excited face what, exactly, was making his heart race and his breath shallow. It felt like a revelation, either way. “I mean,” he said, trying not to speak too deeply and spook her away, “it’s only a theory, but it makes more sense than anything else we’ve come up with.”

Pupils dilated, her eyes were a shade of brown he’d never seen before. “And it’s new information. The police wouldn’t know it, would they?”

He shook his head, shifting his weight so that he had to take a tiny step forward. “Unless Stark told them. I didn’t know about it until yesterday. It’s extremely classified, you see.”

“Perhaps you oughtn’t have told me,” she said without conviction, matching his step with one of her own. She was close enough now that she had to tip her head up to look at him, doing something dangerous to her eyelashes and elongating the smooth white line of her neck. Fitz struggled to keep his eyes from focusing on her barely parted lips.

“I would trust you with anything.”

“Funny,” she said, and damn, he wanted her to stop talking so he didn’t have to look at her mouth but also wanted her to talk forever so he could feel the rumble of her voice in his own chest, “funny, but I rather feel—”

A high, piercing shrill sounded suddenly, causing them both to jump. His face was in her hair and his hands slid around her shoulders in an attempt to steady them both; she clutched at the lapel of his jacket, letting out a little shriek. Fitz felt his brain blink out, only coming back to itself when the noise repeated and he somehow managed to place it. “It’s just the phone,” he said, unable to keep himself from stroking his thumb over her shoulder blade. 

“Are you going to get it?” she whispered, not letting go.

It rang again. “Mr. Coulson will.”

“Good. What were you saying?”

There it was again, the heady rush of drowning in the roaring river of her eyes. Even if he could get his head above water, he didn’t want to. “I think _you_ were saying something.”

“Was I?” It was more a breath than a question.

 “Definitely you.”

His heart was throbbing in his ears at what felt like a million beats a minute. The entire world had melted away around him, leaving only her and whatever was left of him: a brain? A voice? His mouth he knew was there because he could feel it buzzing and trembling, but his bones appeared to be deserting him as his neck slowly sunk in spite of himself until he was almost, just nearly—

BRRRING!

He wrenched himself away from her, shaking. He didn’t know where Coulson was, but he really couldn’t pretend that the world had disappeared because there was still the murder and the collaboration and maybe it was Whitehall on the other end and, Lord, here he was making love to a girl he had known for three days in his dead uncle’s office and where in God’s name was Coulson? Getting the receiver to his ear was an act worthy of the Victoria Cross; the fact that his voice was steady when he answered it was a miracle straight from God. “President’s Office.”

Jemma took a step back, smoothing down her skirt with trembling fists. That had been…rather frightening. Not being in Fitz’s arms—oh, no, that had been wonderful, delightful, invigorating, like getting her first-class degree and a job offer at the head of a research lab and a ten-year grant and everything she had ever wanted all at once. No, what was alarming was the way her brain had seemed to switch itself off as she stared into his eyes as deep and blue as the sea. Looking at him, she couldn’t remember her long-held beliefs about the superfluity of men when one had science or her mother’s lectures about What Nice Girls Do; she could hardly have come up with the words ‘gas mask’. A moment longer and she couldn’t swear to what might have happened, though the tingling sensation that had sprung to her lips gave her some idea. Bless the phone. Or damn the phone. She wasn’t sure which.

Slowly, she came back to herself. Fitz was straightening and stacking the files as he talked, holding the receiver between his cheek and his shoulder and rather deliberately avoiding looking at her. “Yeah,” he said to the party on the other end. “Well, the inquest is tomorrow morning and I don’t know what’s going to happen after that. I’ll try.” A pause as he listened. “People would come to hear Trip play by himself, he knows that.” A little chuckle. “Yeah, well, I’m not much competition…yeah, I’m all right. I’m good. I’ve got friends to help me.” He did look at her then, the entire universe in his half-smile. She felt her knees tremble. “I’ll ring you if I can. Thanks, Mack.”

Hanging up the phone, he returned to cleaning in silence. The air hung heavy with things unsaid. Jemma took long, slow breaths, hoping to suck in the right words. It was Mrs. Weatherby in the bathroom all over again, only this time was different. This time, Jemma _knew_ she had seen something in Fitz’s eyes, too.

Eons later, he straightened the last stack and cleared his throat. His eyes were unfathomable wells. “It’s, um, nearly five. If we were going to go to the police before the Hall—”

“Yes,” she cut in briskly, not certain if she was glad to seize at some normality or covering disappointment. “Mother will be worried if we’re late. Let me just get my parcel—”

“This?” He held it up by the string, his other hand already offering her handbag. “What is it?”

“My notes on the antidote compound. I wanted to—never mind, it’s silly.”

“No, Jemma, I’d like to see them. Maybe tonight?”

Her heart shuddered a little in her chest. She hadn’t missed his use of her first name this morning, but she had chalked it up to the fact that he was obviously just waking up. This was not that. This, she felt, was a deliberate choice. He said her name like it was a sweet, imbuing her ordinary, everyday name with the same tender feeling of her father’s Gem. Much as she loved Simmons, the name that denoted equality and partnership, she rather though she could become very fond of hearing Jemma. “All right, tonight—there’s nothing in there that can’t be said in the drawing room.” She held out her arms for the parcel, but he shook his head and tucked it under his arm. Trying not to show her pleasure at his chivalry, she picked up her hat from the desk and put it on. With no mirror in the room, she couldn’t see how it looked. “Am I straight?” she asked, turning to Fitz.

“You look perfect,” he said, and she did legitimately drop her eyes in confusion, not daring to see what exactly he meant by that.

They made their way into the conspicuously empty outer office, very careful not to touch each other. “That explains why he didn’t answer the phone,” she said, trying to keep her voice light.

He frowned as he took his hat and coat from the rack. “I wonder where he went. I suppose we’ll have to leave him a note about Mrs. Weatherby.”

As that conversation had taken place a hundred lifetimes ago, he had the note nearly written before she remembered what it was even about. “All right?” he asked, holding it out to her.

 

_Dear Mr. Coulson, Please hire a private investigator to research Mrs. Sonia Weatherby. Any information appreciated, but we are particularly interested in her past. Thank you very much. L. Fitz_

She handed it back with a nod. “What’s the L for?”

He made a face, half-embarrassed and half-disgusted. “Leopold. And now you truly know all my secrets.”

“All of them?” she asked, looking down at her clasped hands and trying not to think about the secret she had felt pulsing and thrumming between them.

He paused a second before answering. “Maybe not all of them?”

The words were innocuous enough, but something about the way he said them—hesitant, shy, hopeful—drew her lips up into a smile. Perhaps he didn’t want to completely ignore what had happened. Perhaps this time, they could begin to draw conclusions from the data. “Well, good. I’ve still one or two left, I think. It wouldn’t do to have nothing left to discover after only three days.”

“I don’t think it’s possible to know everything about anyone. But, um, I—I’m willing to try.” He matched her bashful smile with one of his own, offering her the arm not currently occupied with his coat and her notes. “Shall we?”

“We shall.” She placed her hand firmly in the crook of his elbow. The jolt of electricity that passed between them no longer surprised her; what was unexpected was the warm sense of safety that came along with it. Casting a glance back over her shoulder as she went out, she felt a sudden surge of happiness. “Thank goodness for Mr. Coulson,” she said aloud.

And Fitz, doing his level best to keep from breaking out into song, squeezed her hand with his elbow and said “Amen.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, just as a reminder, there will be no new chapters next week. I will be back the following Monday driving a locomotive of plot as we bear down on the solution to all mysteries!


	25. The Road Home

Once in the lift, Fitz pushed the button for the ground floor before making an exasperated noise and jabbing at the one marked 3. “We ought to tell Mr. Biggs we’re leaving,” he explained.

She shrugged, content to go anywhere he liked. “Did he think your meetings went well?”

“I don’t know that he was expecting much, but yeah, he seemed pleased. I think the fact that I understand the technical side of it made up for the fact that the personnel bit is a mystery to me.”

The lift came to a stop. He cranked open the door and gestured for her to go out in front of him. “I told you so. You don’t give yourself enough credit, Fitz.”

He looked away quickly, but not so fast she didn’t catch his pleased smile. “That’s not what my mother would say.”

She laughed aloud as he knocked at a plain, unmarked door about halfway down the long hall. “A bit arrogant in your younger days?”

“It isn’t arrogant if it’s true.”

The door opened suddenly, revealing a disapproving Mr. Biggs. Fitz sobered instantly; Jemma found it a touch more difficult to keep her smile under control. “We’re going back to the Hall now,” Fitz said. “Mr. Coulson wasn’t in the office, so will you let him know I’ll be in touch?”

“Disappeared already?” Mr. Biggs frowned. “The agency usually has better standards. Perhaps we should request someone else.”

“Oh, I don’t think that’ll be necessary. Simmons said he was very helpful, didn’t…” He trailed off, pointing at her vaguely as if passing a baton.

She took it without a gap. “Oh, yes, very helpful—he’s already made himself familiar with your archives and answered my questions very knowledgably.”

“Perhaps he just stepped out to the washroom,” Fitz finished.

“Likely,” she said, nodding. “Do give him another chance, Mr. Biggs.”

Mr. Biggs looked down the sharp slope of his nose at her. “By all means, then. If Miss Simmons says so.”

He sounded polite enough and Fitz, ducking his head respectfully before leading the way back down the hall, didn’t appear to find anything odd about the exchange, but she didn’t think she had imagined the slight tart twist to his words. “Does Mr. Biggs dislike me?” she asked once the lift was on its way down again.

Fitz stopped tapping his fingers against his leg. “Does anyone?” he asked, face crinkling up.

She couldn’t help the little smirk that passed across her face. Fortunately, he was too busy opening the door to notice it. “Yes, sadly, though not many. Does he?”

“Of course not.” Seeing her sharply skeptical eyebrow, he relented. “Not specifically, at least. He’s, um, he thinks all women are dangerous distractions when there’s important work. He’s afraid that I—that we—” He stopped, shook his head, started again. “It’s just, this whole collaboration thing is going to require a lot of my attention and he’s concerned about anything that might, you know, split it. Um.” Clearing his throat, he made a show of putting on his hat as they stepped outside. “Rather bright today, isn’t it?”

The smirk tried to spread into a full-fledged grin, forcing her to bite the corners of her cheeks to keep them steady. It was a comfort to know she wasn’t the only one in danger of losing focus. “Yes, rather,” she said. “I’ve parked Rosalind in a garage down the block, if you don’t mind walking?”

“Not at all.”

Jemma took his offered arm with an inward shiver, pleased as punch. She had heard far too many girls at school overanalyse masculine behaviour and she had determined long ago never to fall in the same trap, but she didn’t feel it was stretching a point to conclude that Fitz _did_ have some kind of interest in her beyond the friendly. He _had_ almost kissed her, hadn’t he? There was no denying that fact. Although—she paused, excitement slightly dimmed. Although it could have been a mere biological response, such as would happen with any girl after an extended period of anxiety. The only way to know was to talk about it, even if she wasn’t sure how such a conversation would go: “Pardon me, it appeared you might have a interest in kissing me; I have a similar interest in kissing you, so might we try it again?” Perhaps it would be better to make a quick detour into an alley and get it over with. Then at least she would know where they stood. She would give a great deal to know what Fitz was thinking in this moment.

Fitz wasn’t thinking much of anything at the moment, that being the only way he could avoid descending into a whirlpool of disbelief and desire. There couldn’t be anything more innocent than the way her hand nestled in the crook of his elbow, but even that slight pressure nearly drove him to distraction remembering how her whole body had felt in his arms and wondering if she could really have been as perfect as he remembered. It didn’t seem possible, but then three days ago he wouldn’t have said the mere existence of a girl as amazing as Jemma Simmons was possible and look, here she was. Catching a glimpse of them in the shop windows they passed, Fitz nearly didn’t recognise himself. With the coat and the parcel, his new suit and her smart one, the way she was clasping his arm with both her hands, they looked like any of the hundreds of young couples on the streets. They weren’t, of course. But—maybe—they could be?

They arrived at the car far too soon for Fitz’s liking and not soon enough for Jemma’s. While she dug in her handbag for the keys, he dumped his armful into the front seat unceremoniously. “I can drive if you like. You’ve already come down from Oxford this morning.”

She twirled the key around her finger. “Dad prefers me to drive her myself in case something goes wrong—for the insurance, I think. But thank you for offering.”

“Of course,” he said, shrugging, and followed the coat and parcel. Jemma got in more slowly, deliberately straightening her skirt underneath her before putting the key in the ignition and staring at it. He looked too, uncertain why she was hesitating. “Is everything all right?”

“Of course,” she repeated. And that was the last thing either of them said until London was a speck in the distance and Rosalind was eating up the road to the Hall.

It was odd, Jemma thought as the road fell away behind them, that having been so close physically would have resulted in a metaphysical separation, but there it was. Perhaps the heightened awareness of Fitz as a person very different from herself made him seem alien or other—natural, she supposed, and preferable in certain circumstances. But what had drawn her to Fitz in the first place was the feeling that they could walk in and out of each other’s minds as easily as their own, the give-and-take that made talking to him as simple as talking to herself. She didn’t want the other without that. If the choice was kissing Fitz or talking to Fitz, there _was_ no choice—only, she had thought (or hoped) that the decision wouldn’t be necessary. Apparently, romance _did_ spoil everything.

_I’ve spoiled everything_ , Fitz thought desperately, though nearly kissing her had been almost nothing of his own doing. He hadn’t, anyway, so he couldn’t understand why she would be sore about it—but what other explanation was there for why she didn’t seem to want to talk? There hadn’t been this much silence between them in their whole brief acquaintance. Even last night’s drive had been full without speaking. He needed to do something to fix this. He couldn’t let one idiot move ruin what they had, even if it had been the best four seconds of his life. What he had to do was let her know nothing had changed that couldn’t be put back. Somehow.

Finally, Fitz leaned across the seat and gestured between them, shouting over the noise of the road. “Simmons, this is ridiculous.”

“What?” she asked, not looking at him but suddenly overwhelmingly reassured.

“This. All weekend we’ve been trying to be alone to talk. Now we are, and we aren’t.”

She laughed in spite of herself. “We can hardly shout our suspicions for anyone to hear.”

His heart sunk a little. Did they truly have nothing to talk about besides their present circumstances? It hadn’t seemed that way before. But if she’d rather…“Shall I shut up, then?”

“No!” No, Lord no, and leave her to the mercy of her own thoughts, which had nearly driven her straight into a verge a mile back? And waste this precious time where it was only the two of them with no responsibility or cares to bog them down? Was that the Jemma Simmons way? “No, you’re right. Ask me a question.”

“What question?”

“Any question. Only not about the murder. That’s off limits.”

“All right,” he said, not sure what she was after. “How was your tutorial?”

“As good as can be expected under the circumstances. Fortunately, I wrote my essay last week. That was a dull question, Fitz, try again!”

“I don’t know what we’re doing!” he protested.

She sighed heavily, giving Fitz the impression that she would have rolled her eyes had they not been trained on the road. “I’ll start then. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?”

“Panama,” he answered without having to think.

“Panama!” she repeated, “I never would have guessed that. Why?”

“There are eight separate species of monkey living there. That’s the most you can see without having to travel across a whole continent.”

“You like monkeys?”

“I love monkeys.”

“Hmm.” She filed that fact away for future reference—not that she could see a future application, but one never knew. “Now it’s your turn. And no fair asking me my own question!”

He stared out at the countryside, trying to think of something to amuse and surprise her. “Oh, I’ve got one. What food do you wish would disappear off the face of the earth?”

“None, as all foods offer unique nutritional benefits.”

“Now _that’s_ no fair.”

“I don’t know! Fish paste, I suppose. Or lamb.”

“You don’t like lamb?”

“I do, only I wish—”

“You didn’t have to kill lambs to get it?”

“Yes, exactly.”

With that, everything seemed to snap back into place. The questions flew between them thick and fast, from reasonable— _what did you like about school?_ —to unutterably silly— _if you had to marry Newton or Kepler, which would you choose?_ —to serious— _do you think humanity is getting better or worse?_ The answers came just as quickly, tumbling over each other in eagerness to agree or prove the other person wrong, sparking off conversations that sent them down so many rabbit trails they never knew if they had asked the same number of questions or not. This was more like it, Jemma thought as she recklessly endangered their lives by sneaking glance after glance at him. The wind was ruffling up his hair and he was using his hands to make a point; his eyes flashed and crackled with intelligence and she couldn’t decide if his slightly cross or shyly pleased expression was more adorable. Then she would catch herself and turn back. All this, while enjoyable, was no proof of her theory. They weren’t talking about anything one couldn’t discuss with a friend. Friendship was not the problem. They had been friends the first night. The problem was that even now she could see what the angles of his face had looked like from six inches away, and she wanted to see it again.

Fitz had turned in his seat to face her, the better to catch every single forehead crinkle or cut-off laugh—he didn’t want to miss anything about her. “And that,” he said, finishing up a very long explanation, “is why Sir Walter Scott should not be one of Scotland’s favourite sons, but truly understood as the man who gave the entire world an incorrect understanding of our heritage and culture.”

“But what about the poet Burns?” she asked, tongue-in-cheek.

“He can gang aft agley, for all I care.”

She laughed, as he had meant her to. Why had he not noticed before how her laugh was like champagne or good whiskey, going straight to your head and filling you with goodwill towards men? “Your turn, I think.”

“All right,” she said, and hesitated, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel. That was new. So far she had a question ready for him almost as soon as he had finished answering hers. She was weighing something, that much he could tell, but he couldn’t even begin to guess what it was. Coming to a decision, she set her lips firmly before asking, “Why were you staring at me the first night?”

He looked away sharply. He hadn’t known she had noticed that.

“Because,” she continued, steadfastly not looking at him either, “I did try to smile at you and you just glared. And then at dinner it was like you didn’t want to deign to talk with me. But then later—”

“I was trying to make myself believe you were real,” he blurted out.

There was a moment where the only sound was the rush of the wind and the clank of the engine. Anything Jemma could have managed to say would have been swallowed up. Of all the answers she had provided mentally, not one came close to that.

“Only,” he said finally, barely able to be heard, “they said you were at university. And then at the table you were trying to talk about gas masks, which is my own pet project—you know how that is—and then…you couldn’t see yourself sitting in the sunlight, Simmons.”

He said the last sentence so quietly that she suspected she wasn’t meant to hear it at all—probably wouldn’t have, if she had been breathing instead of trying to catch every word. “I thought you disliked me,” she said, trying to slot this new truth in.

“I was trying to think of the right thing to say!”

A laugh bubbled up from inside her, its source the spring of delight at how _dear_ he was. “And ‘have you considered the effects on the eyes’ was the best you could manage?”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

Yes, she supposed it had.

“Is it my turn now?” At her nod, he gathered up every bit of guts he had to ask the question he had been avoiding since the game started. _It’s a bad idea_ , a large part of him screamed, but he had to know sometime and she was the one who had sent the questions down this personal path. “Um, were you…when this is done, did you still…want to go to a jazz club? With me, I mean?”

Her answer came without hesitation. “Yes, absolutely.”

He had braced himself for a polite refusal so well that it took him a second to realize she had in fact said the exact opposite. “I know you were just being kind before, and I wouldn’t want—wait, you said yes?”

“Yes, Fitz. I do.”

Even through the shouting he could hear her determination and amusement, as if she couldn’t believe that he didn’t believe her. “But why?”

“You know why.”

Jemma put into her answer every ounce of feeling she could, hoping he would hear and understand. _Of course_ she still wanted to go out with him; there was no earthly way she would let this slip through her fingers once Macpherson was in the ground and his murderer in prison. It was too good, too important, too full of potential to let fall to the wayside.

“Because we shook on it? I won’t hold you to that, Simmons. You were only being kind—”

“Ugh, Fitz, no!” She took one hand off the wheel to smack his arm gently. “Just stop that. Perhaps I was only being kind before, though I can’t swear to that and neither should you. I’m _not_ being kind now.”

“Really,” he said, a slow smile spreading over his face.

“I thought you were a genius. What part of ‘yes, absolutely’ is unclear?”

“Well, nothing, only—”

“In a court of law, ‘absolutely’ means ‘in every circumstance with no restrictions’. I’ve practically promised myself to you forever.”  

Fitz’s reply got stuck in his throat, trapped by a mental image he had no business picturing. “Wha—um—“

“Besides,” Jemma went on quickly, realising too late that ‘forever’ was striking rather too close to the bone in whichever context she used it, “you’ve been keeping secrets from me. You don’t just like jazz, do you?”

“No,” he admitted.

“You _play_ it, don’t you?”

“Yeah.” He seized at the safe topic with both hands. “My friends Mack and Trip and I, we have a little trio that plays at this club called Lola on the weekends. I missed last weekend, obviously, and we were supposed to premiere something new this weekend, but if we can’t rehearse because I can’t get there…”

He trailed off, wondering why that sounded so familiar…oh. Fitz cursed himself inwardly. They had nearly been clear of the dangerous bit of conversation and here it was again, a brick wall they kept ramming into. She already knew that he was supposed to be somewhere this weekend and might not be able to, because she had heard it all in the office moments after—well. And now he had left a space in conversation long enough for her to wonder and remember, which probably explained why the small shell of her ear was turning pink. And they had been doing so well, too.

“Fitz, I—”

“Is this what it looks like?” he broke in desperately, gesturing to the countryside around them. “Stark was hopelessly lost at this point of the trip.”

He saw her shoulders droop and she sighed before speaking. Relieved, probably. “At least you had Miss Potts to keep you company. I would happily be lost for hours rather than ride tete-a-tete with Cousin Mary.”

“You came down with her?”

“Yes, Mother asked me to bring her to fill up the party.”

“You only came because we were invited at the last minute,” he said, understanding how close they had come to never meeting at all.

“Yes.” Jemma slowed to a stop at an intersection, looking in all directions before proceeding. “No doubt it was intended to be Cousin Mary and you, Macpherson and me. I did ask to sit next to him at dinner.”

“Did you?”

“To talk about my research. I’m not above being pushy when it comes to that; it’s really important, Fitz, and I think it could help a lot of people.”

“I know, Simmons, you don’t have to convince me.”

She continued as if she hadn’t heard him. “It’s better this way, I think. I’d rather—um, not just because of what happened, but—you’re a good deal nicer than your uncle.”

“Oh, thanks. I suppose I’m a good deal nicer than Mussolini, too.”

Squeezing the steering wheel tightly, Jemma rued her mother’s careful training. All she wanted was to make sure he understood that she—well, that he—she didn’t know _what_ she wanted him to understand, but it didn’t matter anyway because he seemed to be blind to her every nuance. Either that or he was willfully running away from the conversation. Could she have misunderstood his interest, interpreting the way he kept staring or the gentle way he had held her as romantic overtures when they were really just expressions of the way he had of making one feel as though one was the most important person in the world? Perhaps it was the same for everybody.

“It was only a joke, Simmons. I know you didn’t mean it that way.”

She pulled her thoughts back from hither and yon, laughing lightly. “Oh, I know. I was trying to decide if I would go so far as that. Is it my turn to ask a question?”

“Yes.”

But she lost her nerve entirely, not able to find the words to ask the question she wanted answered above all else. “Oh, tell me your favorite element.”

They intentionally kept the conversation shallow the rest of the way, each too busy a mile below the surface to ask or answer anything with depth. Fitz watched every word to make sure it didn’t come close to reminding her of anything she could be embarrassed by; Jemma thought of little else, going over every single instant to see where she might have drawn incorrect conclusions. Lost in thought, they missed the turn-off towards Meryton entirely and had to come around the back way. “It’s all right,” she said breezily, “there’s no where to park in town anyway, so we would have had to go past and come back even if we hadn’t missed it.”

“Good,” Fitz said, not caring how long it took to get there. Any time with Jemma was a gift.

A few minutes later, she pulled to the side of the road and parked the car carefully behind a hedge. “She should be safe enough here.”

He took up the parcel and his coat and popped open the car door to swing his legs out over the side. When she didn’t move, he looked over his shoulder expectantly. “Are you coming?”

“Yes, only there’s something first.”

He got back in to settle down. “You want to plan what we’re going to say.”

“No—that is, you know what’s confidential and what isn’t, so I think you should do most of the talking. I only wanted to ask, do you think we ought to give them this?” Reaching into her bag, she pulled out a small glass jar with a bit of dirty rag in the bottom. Upon closer inspection Fitz realised it was the rag they had pulled out of the vent yesterday morning. “Where’d you get the jar?”

“Emptied cotton balls off my dressing table. It’s not sterile, but the cotton is easily identified.”

“Brilliant,” he said, taking it from her to turn around. “What do you think?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know what it will help. They already have most of it; surely this little bit won’t tell them anything they don’t already know.”

“That’s what I think, too. So it’s settled, then.” He got out of the car and came around to open her door for her. “Let’s do this as quick as we can and be back for dinner. I’m starving.”

“Fitz.”

He leaned on the still-closed door, eyebrows raised expectantly.

“It’s just,” she said without looking at him, “I think Mr. Biggs is right—one shouldn’t allow distractions when there’s important work to be done. Anything that interferes with one’s mental process should be eliminated, don’t you agree?”

His heart sunk a little in his chest. So he had failed, then—she couldn’t get over what had happened and didn’t want to work with him any longer. “Arguably, but I think—”

But what he thought went flying out of his head as, in one smooth motion, she reached up to grab his lapel and brought her lips crashing forwards to meet his.

She could have planned it better, she thought; the fact that he was talking meant there was rather a lot of teeth at first, and the odd way their bodies were twisted kept them firmly locked at an awkward angle. _Not_ the first kiss she had imagined. But it was also a million times better than that, because he was soft and tender and the hand he brought up to cup her cheek was trembling, and because when he finally pulled away, eyes glazed and smiling to stop her heart, the first thing he said was “And I always thought all those nerves in our lips were a redundancy.” Which were very nearly the exact words she had been thinking.

She let go his lapel to let him move away if he wanted to, but the only thing he did was slide his hand from her cheek to her shoulder. “All right,” he said, much more calmly than she could have managed, “I don’t want to seem ungrateful, but why did you do that, Simmons?”

 Because she wanted to, mainly—wanted to keep the implicit promise before they went back to the Hall with all its problems. Looking at her hands twisted in her lap, she offered her reasoning the best way she could think of with her heart still pumping furiously and her breath only partially back: “Because I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. And I thought, maybe…and now we can concentrate on the murder again. For as long as its necessary.”

Fitz’s spirits, which had been on level with the stratosphere, suddenly plunged to the earth’s core. It had been an attempt to rid herself of distraction, then. Well, he wouldn’t blame her—goodness knew he had been distracted, too—but he wished there had been a way that didn’t involve the emotional equivalent of the bends. “The murder. Right.” He let go her shoulder and stuffed his hand in his pocket. “We ought to go see about that, shouldn’t we? The longer we wait the longer the murderer goes free.”

Her eyes darkened, the crease appearing in her forehead. “Yes, I suppose. But—”

“Well then,” he said, opening the door and helping her out with as little feeling as possible. “You’ll have to lead. I don’t know where we’re going.”

How true it was, he thought bleakly as they made their way to Meryton’s bustling High Street and wended through the crowd on separate paths. She hadn’t wanted to kiss him, but she did want to go out, but then she did kiss him, but then it was only to clear her head for more important things? He would stake his life on her honesty, but for the life of him, he couldn’t put those facts together into a cohesive whole.

She indicated the police station with a nod of her head, apparently lost in her own thoughts. Holding the door open for her, he wasn’t surprised when she greeted the desk sergeant by name. “Good afternoon, Abernathy. We need to see Inspector Ross, please.”

The officer, who Fitz vaguely recognised as the one who had held the flashlight Saturday morning, took on a respectful but apologetic expression. “I’m sorry, Miss, but you can’t see him.”

“But we’ve information about the murder at my house. He’ll want to know it as soon as possible.”

“Which murder, Miss?”

“Which murder?” She laughed incredulously. “Abernathy, you were there. The murder of Mr. Fitz’s uncle.”

Abernathy’s imitation of a model police officer cracked, his mouth falling open a little before stammering out, “Then—then you haven’t heard, Miss.”

She grew still, one gloved hand clenching into a fist. “Heard what?”

“I don’t know that I should say.”

She looked back at Fitz, eyes wide with fear. He could see the thoughts tumbling through her brain almost as fast as they appeared, none of them pleasant and most of them horrifying. Coming beside her in one large step, he took her hand and placed it firmly in his arm, covering it with his free one. Under, she gripped his arm with the strength of iron. “Whatever it is, you’d better tell us. We’ve a right to know these things.”

Looking steadily at a spot over her shoulder, the officer directed his words to Fitz. “There’s been another murder, sir. Inspector Ross, Sergeant Tompkins, Mr. Nobby, they’re all out there now.”

“Fitz,” she whispered, wavering.

He held her more tightly to his side. “What else? You have to know something more.”

“I don’t, sir, and that’s the truth of it. There was a call that someone else was dead and they rushed out there about two hours ago, and that’s truly all I know.”

Simmons spun on her heel and sped out of the station, leaving him to shout his thanks at Abernathy and follow as quickly as possible. When he caught up to her halfway down the street she caught his hand and pulled. “Fitz, another murder—my father, my mother—”

“There’s no reason to assume that. It could be anybody. He was trying to kill Mr. Stark before, maybe he got him this time—”

“He killed someone else by accident last time, it could have happened—”

“In broad daylight, Simmons? How would that—”

“I don’t know, Fitz, but I can’t—”

Startled, he realised tears were pouring down her cheeks. He came to an abrupt stop, tugging her back to face him and putting a hand on her shoulder. She looked up frantically. “Fitz, what are you doing? We’ve got to—”

“We will. Only give me your keys so I can drive—you’re in no shape, Jemma.”

She dug in her bag and put the key in his hand, tears sparkling on her eyelashes. “Fitz, what if—”

Oh, stuff it, he didn’t care if they were in the middle of town and she thought he was nothing more than a pleasant distraction. He took her around the shoulders and drew her close. “Then you’ll survive,” he said fiercely in her ear. “Jemma, listen to me, I’ve got you, we’ll get there, it will be all right.”

Fingers twisted in his coat, she wailed into his shoulder. “How do you know?”

He pressed a kiss to the side of her hair involuntarily. “Look, how could anyone kill your mother? She wouldn’t let them. And Sir Robert’s the sort to live a hundred years.”

Pulling away, she wiped her eyes with the tips of her fingers. “That’s true.”

“Course it is. But we’ll get there as soon as we can. Just so you’ll know.”

He was grateful she was too occupied to notice the speedometer as they flew to the Hall, only looking up from worrying her hands to give brief directions. Before he expected they were racing up the walk, the façade of the house marred by the police vehicles grouped around the front door. She had tumbled out of the car before he had even come to a complete stop, tripping over her skirts and leaving him to wrench the keys from the ignition and follow as quickly as possible. “Mother! Dad!” she called, high and panicked, bursting through the door and coming to a stop in the hall so abruptly he nearly ran into her.

Down the way, a door Fitz hadn’t noticed before opened, expelling Sir Robert. Even Fitz could see the grief weighing down his normally somber expression. Hell, did that mean—?

Jemma flew to her father, tears returned. “Dad, is Mother—”

“No, Gem, no. It’s Roger.”

“Roger?” They repeated it at the same time, Jemma’s more of a relieved wail to Fitz’s outright confusion. Why on earth—

Fitz heard the front door slam behind him. “Whoever left the red car in the driveway, you ought to be ashamed. It’s impossible for anyone to get in; I had to walk halfway down the lane.”

Jemma, Sir Robert, and Fitz turned to the new arrival in various degrees of shock and disgust. Dropping his suitcase with a dusty thump, David Weatherby placed his hands on his hips and glared. “And what the devil are the police doing here? I thought we had done with all that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're back! 
> 
> The chapters are taking on epic proportions so, moving forward, I'm afraid I can't promise there will be two updates every week. I am going to do my darnedest, but we've caught up to what I have written so it will just depend on if they mind me and stay around three thousand words, or defy me to become 5000+ word monsters like this one. But don't worry, there WILL be a chapter on Friday. I wouldn't leave you hanging like that.


	26. Monday Night

It was the work of a moment for Jemma and Fitz to decide how to handle the situation:

_You’ll take care of him?_

_Of course. Go with your father._

Sir Robert watched the conversation flash between them and nodded, drawing Jemma into the room behind him. Fitz had time to wonder briefly how much he had understood before he turned to Mr. Weatherby as matter-of-factly as possible. “There’s been another murder. I guess Roger’s been killed.”

“What!” Weatherby exclaimed, “that callow pup? Why the devil would anyone want to kill him?”

“Miss Simmons and I just arrived ourselves,” he said. “I’m afraid I know as little as you do.” Though how that was possible, Fitz didn’t know. Weatherby’s motivation and opportunity to kill Macpherson had been logical and straightforward; it made sense for him to be the murderer. If he was truly only just now arriving there had been neither for this new death, meaning either there were two unrelated murderers—a frightening but unlikely prospect—or he and Simmons had been wrong.

Weatherby huffed, stooping to pick up his bag and shoving past Fitz further into the hall. “This is ridiculous. I must have some answers. Where are the policemen?”   

To their left, the drawing room door swung open, revealing Mrs. Weatherby straining to push past the thick arm of a constable. “David? David, is that you?”

“Darling!” He didn’t exactly run to her, that being an action far below his dignity, but he did take the hall in two strides to level the policeman with a glare. Sonia rushed into his arms and clung to him, hiding her face in his shoulder as well as she could.

“David, it’s been awful. You’ve got no idea.”

Fitz caught the policeman’s eye, both made extremely uncomfortable by the embracing couple. He wouldn’t have expected it from Weatherby, who was such the model of the stiff-upper-lip mentality he might have come straight from a shop. But then, he himself had never been very demonstrative and hadn’t he just done the same thing—on a public street, no less? Beautiful women in trouble would do that to you, he supposed. “Officer,” he said, more for some thing to do than anything else, “I’ve got to go move the car. You won’t need me for anything, will you?”

The policeman touched his hat, his elbow nearly knocking Mrs. Weatherby upside the head. “No, sir. I don’t expect so, sir. I believe we’re nearly done here, anyway.”

But when he went to retrieve Rosalind, he found she was already wending her way towards the garage under the hands of the Simmons’ Irish chauffeur. Racing after her with his hat in the air, he came panting to the side and leaned heavily against it. “Sorry,” he said, “Miss Simmons’s things.”

The chauffeur indicated the pile on the passenger seat, hardly looking at Fitz. “Did _you_ leave the car there, sir?”

He stammered, uneasy under the judgment dripping from the other man’s voice. “I had to follow Miss Simmons. She had a shock.”

“Yes, sir. Of course. Mr. Weatherby was a little put out, but I’m sure he’ll understand.”

Fitz was sure he would not, but the chauffeur’s words gave him an idea. “You were the one to pick Mr. Weatherby up from the station? What time was his train?”

“6.10, sir.”

“Oh, I thought he was taking the 4.17.”

The chauffeur eyed him skeptically. “I am not familiar with that train, sir.” As he wouldn’t be, since Fitz had made it up off the top of his head. “The 6.10 express is the only train from London after the 2.33, and he would hardly have taken that one. It’s a very bad train, sir.”

“I must have misunderstood, then.” Fitz scooped up the parcel of notes, Simmons’s handbag, and his coat, then moved around the back to pull her overnight satchel from the rumble seat. “Sorry about the car. She really was very upset.”

“I am sorry to hear that, sir,” the chauffer said, not looking sorry at all, and started back down the path. Fitz watched him go blindly, thinking hard. So that put Weatherby clean out of it, then, unless he had taken the slow train (which seemed unlikely, as there would hardly be time for him to get back up to town to get on the express) or borrowed a car and hidden it somewhere (more possible, depending on the time the murder had happened). They needed more data to draw any conclusions, but it looked as though their earlier data gathering had led them down the wrong path. So much for that.

He deposited Jemma’s notes in the Icehouse, casting a rueful glance at their rolled-up chart, and made his way back to the drawing room via the french doors. No one looked up when he came in, each too occupied with their own fearful thoughts. Fitz looked around the room appraisingly—the Simmons family was nowhere to be seen, as expected, but there still weren’t enough people. The Weatherbys had come inside to sit closely together on the sofa; in the corner, Mary Farquhar hovered over a miserable lump Fitz assumed to be Dot. “Where are Mr. Stark and Miss Potts?”

The policeman answered, happy to oblige. “Mr. Stark has moved to the Green Dragon as a safety measure, and Miss Potts is upstairs packing his things. They decided he was in too much danger here.”

“They think it’s another mistake, then,” he said.

“I don’t believe so, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

“Of course it wasn’t an accident!” Dot burst out. Fitz whirled around to see her hunched over in the corner, her carefully applied make-up in streaks down her face. “He was smothered with a pillow. You don’t accidentally smother someone if you’re trying to kill someone else.”

Cousin Mary stroked her hair tenderly. “There, there. Of course you’re sad, but—”

“I’m not sad, I’m furious! How dare someone kill Roger? He was an ass but he was no harm to anyone but himself. It’s the most senseless, rotten thing I ever heard of.”

Fitz was inclined to agree, having had the same questions pass through his mind all the way back from the Icehouse. Of himself, there was nothing to make Roger a target of murderous intention. Unless Stark had decided unpaid debts were worth killing over, it was difficult to see why someone would consider Roger a threat.

“All death is senseless,” Cousin Mary soothed.

“”Oh, no it isn’t.”

The room turned, surprised, to Sonia. She stared right back, colour high. “Sometimes you kill someone to protect yourself or someone you care about. Sometimes you kill someone for your country. Sometimes you kill someone because you want something and they stand in your way. Sometimes you kill someone to punish them. You all have the death penalty over here, don’t you? You hang murderers?”

“Yes,” Fitz said, as no one else seemed inclined to answer.

“Then you can’t say all death is senseless. You don’t even believe that.” 

Dot jerked away from Cousin Mary and stalked to the french doors, pulling out her cigarette case to jab one between her lips. It bobbed and dipped as she fumbled with her lighter. “Very nice, Sonia. I’m so glad you can justify murder to yourself.” Seeing her shaking hands, Fitz took the lighter from her and held it steadily until the end of the cigarette glowed red. She took it between two fingers and let out a plume of smoke. “Thank you, Mr. Fitz. It’s clear you’re the only halfway decent person in this room.”

He wasn’t sure that was a compliment he was comfortable with. “Oh, I don’t—”

“Anyway, I expect you’re the only person in this room one can count on not having killed him? As you were well away at the time. Enjoy your London excursion with Jemma? Make the most of the opportunity?”

“No, we—” But he stopped, remembering exactly what they had done, and lapsed into red-faced silence. Dot nodded knowingly. Fortunately, Mr. Weatherby cut off anything she might have said in response.

“I was gone, too, or have you forgotten? And I’ll vouch, absolutely, for my wife. She can have nothing to do with any of this.”

Dot took in a long breath of smoke. “I’d be careful of that if I were you, David. You think anyone really knows anyone else that well?”

“Oh, _do_ stop!” Cousin Mary cried, dropping into the chair Dot left vacant. “It’s too awful. I’m sure no one here would want to kill him. Perhaps it was Mr. Stark or Miss Potts or both of them together. That’s possible, isn’t it?”

The policeman, to whom she directed the appeal, shrugged noncommittally. Inwardly echoing Dot’s skeptical eyebrow, Fitz considered that possibility and quickly discarded it. Even pretending they _might_ have a reason to kill Roger, it would be stupid to kill his uncle. Stark needed Macpherson Industries to help him produce and deploy the new defense system; without MI there would be no reason to expand to Britain and he would lose a good deal of money. As for the rumour of branching, MI wouldn’t just go away if its president died suddenly. Stark had to know there would be safety measures in place to protect it. Besides, it wasn’t as though Uncle George had been vital to the running of the business.

However, something in the idea did strike a spark in Fitz. In the office, he had thrown out the suggestion that the first murder might have been done by the Weatherbys working together but neither he nor Simmons had seriously considered it. Now, seeing the way they flowed together on the couch, he examined the theory again. Well, why not? David Weatherby might have the motive, but his wife certainly had an interest in making sure her lifestyle didn’t disappear. If he killed Macpherson with or without her knowledge, it wouldn’t be out of the question for her to kill Roger while he was away to provide him an alibi. In this scenario, Roger was just unlucky. The only question was: would Mrs. Weatherby be able to hold a pillow over Roger’s face long enough to kill him? Fitz rather thought yes. She was a good five inches taller than Roger had been and, though her aim was horrible, she had sent the tennis balls flying the few times she managed to make contact. Yes, she could probably kill someone if she wanted.

His musings on the lethal capability of a MPs wife came to a sudden halt when the door from the hall opened to disclose someone of whose potential to harm he was far less confident. The policeman stepped back and allowed his superiour entrance. “Ah, Mr. Fitz,” Inspector Ross said. “Sad business, this. I assume you have been informed of the details?”

“Not all. But, um, I can get them later. I know enough.”

“Good enough.” Ross moved to stand by the fireplace, which appeared to be his preferred rostrum, and clasped his hands behind him. “Sellon, will you knock up the Simmons and ask them to come here, please?”

Ducking his head deferentially, the policeman did so, returning within a minute to hold the door open for the bereaved. Mrs. Simmons stalked in bravely, directing a years-older Sir Robert with gentle firmness. Jemma trailed in behind her parents, dark circles suddenly having sprung up beneath her eyes. They were red-rimmed, but dry.

_All right?_ he asked silently.

_Almost_.

Ross waited for them to be settled, then cleared his throat impressively. “We’ve finished the questioning and examination of the scene and you’re free to move about the house as before. As you know, Mr. Stark and Miss Potts have been removed to the Green Dragon for their safety. We will be placing officers in the house until the inquest tomorrow to ensure no more unfortunate accidents occur. With this new death the inquest will of course be formally adjourned, and we will set the new inquest as soon as possible. I expect that they will feel no need to call those who were not present in the house today, but the rest of you should expect to stay on.”

Dot swore. “It’s the house party that wouldn’t end. Are we sure we’re not all dead and trapped in a hellish Limbo?”

Ross stoically ignored her, stroking his mustache. “I don’t have anything else to say, beyond this warning: be on your guard. My men are solid, but they can’t be everywhere at once, and there is no predicting what the murderer will do to cover up his crimes.”

Fitz noted the masculine pronoun, but didn’t think it was necessarily indicative of the direction Ross’s investigation was taking. Statistically, he believed most murderers were men. Across the way, Simmons caught his eye with a tiny nod, her eyes flicking to the back of David Weatherby’s head. He raised an eyebrow in return. She pursed her lips together and glanced, more pointedly this time, between the husband and wife, resting on each head until she was sure he understood her meaning. With a nod, he bit back a rueful smile. So they were on the same page of _How to Solve a Murder_? Well, why should that surprise him? They hadn’t had a problem with that before. It was only anything outside the murder that was a point of disagreement.

A cold prickly feeling raised goosebumps on the back of his neck, and he shifted just slightly to get out from under Mrs. Simmons’s glare. “If I may, Inspector,” she said, not looking away, “I’d like to address the group.”

“Certainly,” he said, with a vague air of _what is it to me?_

She stood and clasped her hands in front of her, looking suddenly very similar to Jemma. “The inspector has informed me that it is for the best if you continue to stop here as long as necessary, but I know you all will be understanding when I say that we will not be able to continue as before. This is now a house of grief. To that end, there will be no formal dinner tonight. Cook will be serving a buffet-style meal in twenty minutes. That is all.”

“If there’s any questions?” Ross waited, clearing his throat when no one met his eye. “Very good, then. Sellon, here, will be with you tonight.” And he stepped down from his soapbox and began to exit the room. His movement was permission for everyone else to relax, drooping in relief that nothing truly awful had happened in the last five minutes. Give them some time, Fitz thought as he moved across the room to the Simmons family. Eventually it will stop knocking you down.

He stopped in front of Sir Robert and stuck out his hand. “I’m very sorry for your loss, sir. I, um, I hope you don’t think it’s forward of me to say I understand.”

“I’m sure you do.” Sir Robert grasped his hand and shook it firmly. “Thank you, Mr. Fitz. And for taking care of my Gem.”

“It was my pleasure, sir. Um.” He turned to her—physically, as he had been leaning towards her in all other ways since she entered the room. “I brought your things from the car. They’re over there.” He waved a hand towards the french doors. “I wondered—um, Ross—”

Mrs. Simmons stood abruptly, inserting herself between them. “Yes, thank you, Mr. Fitz. I’m sure we’re very grateful. If you’ll excuse us?” Taking Jemma firmly by the hand, she tugged her to her feet and pulled her out behind Ross. Simmons looked over her shoulder apologetically. _Talk to him_ , her eyes said.

_I will_ , he promised.

But when he hurried out onto the drive after Ross, the inspector was on the very point of driving away. “Yes?” he asked, clearly irritated and trying to cover it.

“It’s just,” Fitz panted, “we stopped by to tell you earlier, you weren’t there, um, we’ve come up with a motive—can we talk somewhere I don’t have to shout?”

Ross sighed imperceptibly. “We who, Mr. Fitz?”

“Jemma—Miss Simmons and I. Please, it’s very important.”

Motioning to his sergeant to shut off the car, Ross turned and rested his arm on the window. “Hop in the back here. It’s private enough.” Pushing aside his natural disinclination for the back of police cars, Fitz did as instructed.  “So,” Ross said, “what is this motive?”

He listened impassively as Fitz explained as well as he could. He had no scruple telling Jemma everything, but the information _was_ classified, after all, and it shouldn’t be common knowledge. Not even in a murder case. Without details, though, the whole thing sounded rather unconvincing, even to him. When he came lamely to the end, Ross nodded. “I can see how you would think that might be a motive. How do you explain the fact of the murder that happened while he was gone?”

Fitz dropped his eyes. “Um. We thought…Mrs. Weatherby was still here.”

The sergeant rustled in the front seat. Ross fixed him with a hard stare. “It is an idea,” he said without turning to Fitz. “And of course a wife can’t give evidence against her husband, or the other way round, so they’re safe there. But it’s flimsy, Mr. Fitz, very flimsy.”

“I know,” he agreed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It wouldn’t be if I could tell you everything, but I really can’t.”

“In that case, you understand why we can’t charge the Weatherbys on that evidence.”

“Yes,” he said. “I know. We only thought it was important to tell you before the inquest. That was…before, of course.”

“Yes,” Ross mused. “Dreadful business, that.”

They fell silent. Fitz tried to imagine Roger Simmons lying dead on a slab, face twisted into the gasping shapes you made when you couldn’t get air, but the image kept melting into his uncle’s brick-red gape. It was horrible, he thought with sudden vehemence. They had to stop this.

After a minute, Ross cleared his throat. “Is there anything else, Mr. Fitz?”

“No.”

“If you don’t mind, then. I’ve been late to dinner the last three nights and Mrs. Ross will put me out of the house if I miss again. Marriage, Mr. Fitz, is a double-edged sword. Consider it carefully.”

He paused with both legs out the door. “I’m not considering getting married.”

“No?” Ross was thoughtful. “That’s probably for the best. I’ll see you tomorrow at the inquest.”

Fitz held one hand up in farewell as the inspector drove away. Lucky man, going home to a wife and dinner. He didn’t know how the inspector managed it, though, looking at corpses one minute and a nice pie the next. It was enough to put a man off his feed. He didn’t feel like ever eating again. Then his stomach rumbled, reminding him that _he_ hadn’t seen a corpse that day and one couldn’t subsist on a plate of biscuits and a kiss for any length of time, so he went inside to dinner.

The room was all but deserted when he arrived, with only Mrs. Weatherby and Miss Farquhar eating silently at one end. As dinner partners, he could think of few people he’d enjoy less, but food was becoming more important the closer he got to it and he couldn’t make himself turn tail and run. Besides, it wasn’t cricket to leave a woman defenseless with a potential murderess. Maybe, if he didn’t sit too close, he could avoid conversation.

At first, his plan worked like a dream. He wolfed down chicken and potatoes and some sort of hash and a gravy that made him want to lick his plate, all the time consciously avoiding thinking anything further than the square foot in front of him. The silent women appeared to be doing the same. When he got up for a piece of strawberry shortcake to go with his coffee, though, Mrs. Weatherby shoved out the chair beside her and waved him over. Fitz hesitated, hands full. He did not want to go sit and make conversation. But the dishes were in his hands; he could hardly pretend he didn’t plan on eating them. Dragging his feet, he made his slow way over and plopped down gracelessly.

She put her chin in her hand and batted her eyelashes up at him. Poking his cake as if it had done something to offend him, he reflected grouchily that the calculated move had none of the charms of Simmons’s unaware one. “What were you talking to Ross about?” she asked.

“Something I remembered. About the murder.”

“Roger’s murder? Why, how could you? You weren’t even here.”

“No,” he said briefly, “the other murder.”

She laughed. Funny how, now her husband was nowhere to be seen, murder was no longer quite so awful. “That makes sense, then. The only people who know anything about the new murder are Sir Robert and Miss Farquhar—and the murderer, of course.”

Fitz glanced across the table at Cousin Mary, who shrunk under his gaze. “Did you find him, then, Miss Farquhar?”

“Sir Robert and I,” she said in a whisper. “I’d rather not discuss it. It’s not quite the thing.”

Mrs. Weatherby went on, heedless. “Just opened the door to the study and pow, there he was. He had a pillow over his face, didn’t he?”

“A cushion,” Cousin Mary corrected. “We thought he was asleep. Sir Robert said he used to sleep that way as a small boy.”

Feeling a pang of sympathy for Sir Robert, Fitz weighed the benefits of pressing for more information. On one hand, he would be unlikely to find out anything Simmons couldn’t, assuming she was with her father now. On the other, who knew what information might be lurking in the two women in front of him? Particularly if their suspicions were true? “And, er, what time was it?”

“Around four,” Sonia replied. “It must have been, wouldn’t you say? Before tea, anyway. Everyone was coming up to the house already.”

“From where?”

She shrugged. “Here and there. No one wanted to be in the same room. All this waiting is making us sorta nervy, you know. Except, you and Sir Robert were together?”

She turned to Mary expectantly, not going to take silence for an answer. Seeing this, the other woman spoke reluctantly. “We were talking about gardening. He was going to find me a book.”

She looked so miserable sitting there, a frowsy, scrawny lump, that Fitz couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. She could be his mam, almost, or one of her friends. “It must have been very hard for you to see that.”

“We heard you almost fainted,” Sonia said slyly.

“And who can blame him!” Cousin Mary exclaimed. “It’s _terrible_ to see a dead body, particularly when it’s someone you cared for. I wish I hadn’t seen this one. I’m sorry he’s dead.”

“So are we all,” came Edith’s voice from the doorway. Sonia started guiltily, leaping to her feet and almost making it look intentional. Sailing into the room like a grand barge, Edith graciously turned and began selecting her dinner from the heated trays. “But it doesn’t make it better to discuss it, don’t you think? Particularly when it can be so painful to one’s companions.”

“Oh, well,” Sonia said, rubbing one ankle with the top of her other foot. “I meant no harm.”

“Of course not.” Edith came to her rightful place at the head of the table. “One doesn’t always think of how one’s words are understood. I’m afraid I haven’t any entertainment planned for this evening, but there’s always the gramophone or wireless, and we’ve got quite a few jigsaws you’re welcome to do.”

It was a clear dismissal, and Sonia showed more intelligence than Fitz would have given her credit for by beating a hasty retreat. He followed as soon as possible, nearly frozen to death by Edith’s stony expression. Simmons had to be around somewhere, didn’t she? He had to tell her what Ross had said.

But two hours later, he had put together five jigsaws without a sign of her. He, like the others who had joined him for dinner, had settled in the drawing room, where Sellon’s upright figure provided at least the appearance of safety. It had not, however, stopped Mrs. Weatherby from prodding him with a million questions about his meetings.

“Of course we discussed weapons,” he said for the twentieth time. “We make weapons, we have to talk about them. We also talked about a fertiliser we’re working on in our chemical division and a great deal about stock prices. I promise, all of it is terribly boring.”

Mrs. Weatherby pouted, trying to jam together two pieces that were obviously different colours. “You’re an old spoilsport, Mr. Fitz. You don’t mean to tell me your government is interested in fertilizer? Our president would never bother.”

He snapped a piece into place with a satisfying click. “Met him personally, have you?”

“I’ve heard him on the radio. _Such_ a clever man and _so_ distinguished, though his wife has a face a bit like a horse. _She_ might be interested in fertilizer. She’s always going around with the most dirty people. But the president, never. Which is why I can’t help thinking…”

Frankly, he couldn’t take it any longer. “Mrs. Simmons!” he said, jumping to his feet and nearly upsetting the table. “Will Jemma be coming down at all?”

Both Edith and Cousin Mary looked up from their solitaire games, startled. As if automatic, Mrs. Simmons polite-but-disapproving expression slid into place. “I doubt we’ll be seeing Miss Simmons this evening.” She lingered over the three syllables of _Miss Simmons_ , clearly putting him in his place. “She dined with her father and mentioned a headache.”

“So, not at all, then?”

“No. Not at all.”

In that case, there was no reason for him to hang around here, fending off questions with classified answers and opening himself up to hostile women. Better to go upstairs, lock the door, and try to get some sleep. He was already standing, anyway. “Right. I only wanted to see how she was doing, but if she’s gone to bed already I will talk to her tomorrow. Good night, Mrs. Simmons. Miss Farquhar. Mrs. Weatherby.”

They echoed back good nights as he left, the constable giving him a brief tip of the hat as he passed. Fitz had intended to go upstairs immediately, but the sound of his name from inside the room made him stop, placing one hand on the door to keep Sellon from closing it all the way.

“Are you sure there’s nothing between them?” Cousin Mary asked. “They seem awfully intimate for so short a time.”

“Of course not,” Edith answered breezily. “Jemma’s much too smart for that kind of thing. She’s said for years that all she wants is to work, and she can hardly do that with a husband, can she?”

“Things change when you meet the right person.”

“But you don’t take leave of your senses.”

“I don’t know,” Cousin Mary said thoughtfully.

Mrs. Weatherby cut in. Fitz could almost hear her gum smacking. “If you ask me, they’re dead gone on each other. You should have seen the way his ears turned red when Dot asked him what they had been up to in London.”

“Thank you, Sonia. I’m sure that’s very interesting.” Mrs. Simmons’s response left no room to doubt her true meaning. Letting go of the door, Fitz met Sellon’s sympathetic eyes with a brief lift of the corners of his mouth before it closed in his face. Well, what had he expected? he asked himself as he trailed up the stairs. He had always known a girl like Jemma Simmons was too good for him. He had been stupid to think that she could care in any kind of romantic, long-term way. There were always more important things.

Locking his door behind him, Fitz threw himself face-down on the bed and groaned. Had it only been this morning that he woke up in Uncle George’s bed to breakfast and her? And since then he had won over a government and a board, solved and unsolved a murder, nearly kissed Jemma, been kissed by Jemma, and had his wildest dreams come true before being summarily dashed against the rocks. For a chap who relished routine, it was dizzying. How could you tell where you were with all this back-and-forth? He was exhausted. And sad. And frustrated. And irritated. And, down at the very bottom, a damnably tiny bit hopeful, though he knew it was a fool’s hope. All in all, he rather hoped he _never_ had a day like this again.


	27. Tuesday Morning

After tossing and turning all night, it was a relief when Jemma finally opened her eyes to stare at the ceiling and found glowing goldly in the just-risen sun. At last, she could abandon the pretense of sleep and be up and doing, the constant activity hopefully fending off the troublesome thoughts that plagued her. Round and round they chased each other through the long hours: Roger. Fitz. Roger. Fitz. It was no surprise, of course, that she couldn’t stop thinking of her murdered playmate cousin. She _ought_ to be thinking about Roger. After all, she had known him all her life, and now he was dead. Worse, he was dead because someone had decided to kill him, taking away his life for some reason of their own in one of the worst actions one person could do to another. He deserved justice. She should be working to bring that about.

But it was no surprise either, perhaps, that the dazed expression on Fitz’s face after kissing her had haunted her nearly every waking minute.

Groaning, she shoved back the covers along with the memory of the smooth firmness of his lips and got up, stumbling to her closet in a bit of a daze. It was early enough she wouldn’t expect to see anyone else; there was no reason to put on black yet. Instead, she slid into a skirt and ratty grey-blue jumper, snuggling into its well-worn folds like her childhood blanket. If she was up, she might as well work. They already knew, didn’t they, that the police missed things when going over crime scenes?

She crept down the stairs as quiet as a mouse, casting a glance at the Visitor’s Corridor when she passed. Ought she wake Fitz? No, he had had a difficult few days, too. It would be selfish to do him out of much-needed sleep merely because she would enjoy his company. The study door swung open easily under her hand before she even attempted the key. Funny the police hadn’t locked it up. Then again, she thought, breath catching in her throat as she saw the figure sitting in the far leather wingback, perhaps they had.

He didn’t appear to have heard her, one hand buried in the curls tumbling over his forehead as he frowned in concentration at whatever weighty tome he was reading. Dressed in the shabby slippers and a jumper nearly identical to her own in colour and age with a cup of tea steaming faintly beside him, he looked as if he belonged, as if he had always been here. And the oddest thing was that didn’t seem odd at all. Leaning against the jamb, she allowed herself a brief flight of fancy: what if she went over and pushed the curls back, took his face between her hands, and kissed him again? Would he reciprocate? Would he pull her onto his lap and take the lead? Or, as he had done yesterday, would he get stiff and shy and push her away? Flight come to a crashing halt, she folded the idea up to save for another day. It was no time to be thinking about romance, anyway. “What are you reading?”

He looked up sharply, surprised but not alarmed. “Er, _Principia_.”

Shutting the door quietly behind her, she began to make her way over. “I didn’t know my father had that. Is it the first or second edition?”

“What? Oh, not Russell’s _Principia._ Newton.” He showed her the binding, finger in to mark his place. “I can’t imagine trying to make sense of Russell’s notation at this hour. My eyes would probably permanently cross.”

“You’re reading Newton at this hour, though,” she said, dropping into the chair across from him.

“You don’t become an engineer without becoming a physicist, and you don’t become a physicist without reading Newton. I have large bits of this off by heart.”

“In Latin?” she gaped.

“What, are you telling me you can’t read Latin?”

“No, only French and German. Apart from nomenclature, of course.”

He set the book aside, a smile teasing the corners of his mouth and eyes. “Me neither. I’ve got it memorised in translation.”

“Oh, well then. That’s not so impressive.” But she smiled to let him know it still was. “I’ve always loved Newton.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

He handed her a teacup and she took a sip, not at all surprised that it was the perfect temperature and strength. “Did you knock up the servants to get this ready?”

“No, I made it myself. Had a feeling you might be coming down here.” She looked into her cup, sobering at the memory of why she had come. Leaning forward, he tapped her knee with the back of one finger. “I’m sorry, by the way. Are you all right?”

“Oh, I—” She stopped, trying to think what her mother would have her say.

“Jemma. I’m not your mother.”

A tendril of pleasure curled through her stomach, whether at the use of her first name or the steady trustworthiness in his eyes she couldn’t tell. Either way, she would be safe with him. She sighed. “It’s strange, Fitz. I feel as though I should be sad, but I’m not, only confused. It doesn’t feel real. I think I’ll miss the cushion more than Roger, really. I made it for Dad when I was a small girl; it’s been in his study for years and years. I don’t expect he’ll care to have it back now.”

“I don’t remember a cushion.”

“And you tried to tell me you were Sherlock,” she said, half-smiling. “It was there. Mr. Biggs may have been sitting on it, perhaps.”

He sat up sharply, gripping the arms of the chair like he was about to take flight. “D’you mean he was in _this_ chair? I figured he had been killed here, but—”

“Oh yes. Dad was quite clear about it—the legal mind, I suppose, even though he’s terribly broken up about the whole thing.” Clasping her hands together, she let them hang between her knees. “I’ve got quite a good idea what happened from his end, but the beginning part of it is all a muddle. The longer I think about it the less clear it becomes. _Why_ should anyone have wanted to kill him, Fitz?”

She didn’t know that she expected an answer but he leaned forward eagerly, eyes bright. “I’ve been thinking about that. Last night I thought that he might have been killed just to provide an alibi, but surely there are more economical ways of doing that. Mrs. Weatherby might have narrowly escaped death herself, say. Then she wouldn’t be guilty—at least, not guilty of another death, assuming she wasn’t guilty of the first one. Yeah?”

“Yes,” she said slowly. “That makes sense. So what then?”

“I think he must have known something, something that would have given the murderer away. Something they didn’t _know_ he knew until recently, which is why he was killed.”

“But that could be anything. It could be something he said while we were gone. It could be something he said while we were in the Icehouse, or at tennis, or any time, really—how will we know who it implicates when we don’t even know what it is?”

The light dimmed, and he pulled his hands back from their far-flung positions. “We’ll just have to talk to people, like we did before.”

“Oh, Fitz.” She brought her hands up to circle her neck and collapsed back into the chair. “We haven’t got time. The inquest is in less than six hours, and after that neither you nor I have any reason to stay here. We’ll go our separate ways and then what?” _Separate ways_ , she heard herself say with a pang. Golly, that was going to be rotten.

Pressing his mouth into a thin line, he looked down at the carpet. “I hadn’t realised we would be…but, yeah, you’re right. We’ll just have to leave it to the police.”

That was making it sound like she wanted to, but there couldn’t have been anything further from her wishes. She’d _far_ rather fight it out side-by-side; she just couldn’t think of a way to manage it. More defensively than she meant, she retorted, “Well, what were _you_ thinking we would do? I’ve got school, you’ve got MI and the Project—it isn’t as though we’ll have time to be haring off after motive and opportunity.”

He had shoved himself out of the chair halfway through her question and spoke while facing the bookshelves. “I already said you were right, Simmons. There’s no need to bludgeon it in.”

She blinked, taken aback by his forcefulness. “Bludgeon—why—”

“Never mind.” Sighing, he turned around and leaned his worn-down elbows on the back of the chair. “I talked to Ross, by the way. Couldn’t tell him much, of course, which meant he didn’t see any reason to be seriously concerned.”

“He’s not going to move?”

“Didn’t seem like it.”

“How stupid can he be?”

Head hanging between his shoulders, he didn’t look up. “I wouldn’t blame him, I didn’t believe me, either. But that does mean, without more proof…”

“He might get away with it.”

“Yeah.”

They fell silent, staring in opposite directions as they thought. Jemma’s mind was racing, the thoughts having resumed as if they had merely fallen over in exhaustion and were now as energetic as ever after a bit of rest: Roger. Fitz. Weatherby. Fitz. He was there right in front of her and felt a million miles away; what had she done? What had she said to make him be this distant? Perhaps she should have done as she wanted to when she first came in. It couldn’t be worse than this.

“Why did you think he must have been killed here?” she asked finally, tentatively. “Did someone say, or—”

He looked up, but stayed slumped over. “If you were in that other room, there must be some reason you couldn’t come in here. That’s, er, simple deduction, Watson.”

She perked up at the slightly lighter tone, rolling her eyes. “Pardon me, Holmes. I don’t suppose you have any theories about what Roger was doing in here by himself at that time of day? Keep in mind he was not a great reader.”

Straightening, he put his hands at the small of his back indignantly. “You wound me, Simmons. I am a genius. There’s only two reasons he would be in here: either he had an appointment to meet someone or—the second reason you know.”

“No I don’t,” she said, surprised.

“Simmons, you heard it as well as I did. At lunch, he said he would sneak in here to drink your father’s good alcohol. If everyone was staying well out of each other’s way, wouldn’t it be worth a shot?” The corners of his mouth turned up. “Literally.”

It felt like a year since she had seen him smile; her answering grin was far too large for the small joke. “Of those two, I think the latter rather more likely. I remember once when he came to visit us—he was thirteen or fourteen, perhaps, it was hols anyway—he was discovered in the butler’s cupboard, his mouth all purple—his face, Fitz—” The laugh the memory evoked choked her. He would be purple, too, if he was suffocated; the guilty eyes of the youth transformed into blank, staring eyes of the man. That was real.  He was dead and gone forever. She brought her hand up to her mouth, holding back the sob that threatened to engulf her.

Fitz flew around the chair to crouch in front of her, taking her dangling hand between both of his and rubbing it gently. That did it. The tears she had been carefully suppressing since she found out her parents were fine came like a hurricane, her shoulders shaking with great, gasping sobs as she wept for the cousin she hadn’t known she loved until this very moment. Fitz didn’t say anything. He only handed her his handkerchief and murmured soothingly until the storm had passed.

When she could breathe again, she wiped her eyes and tried to laugh, just to get the somewhat stricken look off his face. “I suppose I am sad, after all.”

“ ‘s normal,” he said, a tower of strength. “No, you keep it.”

She rolled the soggy square into a ball and brought it to rest between her hands, still sniffling. He lifted his hand to let her in, then brought it back to circle the whole thing. “I’m sorry.”

“What for? Lord, Jemma, you can cry or not as much as you like. It doesn’t make a difference to me.”

His eyes were too blue for her to bear. “My mother would care.”

She didn’t realise the tears had begun again until she felt his thumb on her cheek, gently dabbing them away with the still-sodden handkerchief. “I already told you, I’m not your mother.”

Really, a person less like her mother she couldn’t imagine, she thought, having to hold herself very still not to arch into his hand like a cat being petted. Fitz understood her in a way Edith never had and never would. Probably that was because she and Fitz thought the same things were important, while her mother was so concentrated on status and appearances and things running smoothly. Even yesterday, when her father had been in near shock, her mother had been determined to keep everything calm for the guests/suspects still in the house. Even today, she was planning a grand reception for anyone returning to the house after the inquest. Starting up with a gasp, she jerked away from Fitz’s ministrations and searched the room for a clock. “What time is it?”

“Um.” He looked at his watch. “Half-past six.”

“Oh, Lord, and Mother bustling around already—I’ve got to go, she’d have a fit if she saw me wasting time like this.”

Distracted by the mental list of chores her mother had given her last night, Jemma saw but did not understand the shadow that fell across Fitz’s face. Surely he understood Edith’s irrational demands gave way for nothing, not even grief? He stood, stuffing the handkerchief in his pocket as he held out his other hand to help her up. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to keep you from more important things.”

She stopped halfway to the door and turned to face him, unable to ignore the hurt pulsing underneath his words. “More important things? Oh, no, Fitz. This has been…” Waving a hand in the air to fill in for the word she couldn’t find, she hoped he would read her mind in this instance as he had so many times before.

Scuffing his slipper against the carpet, he nodded without meeting her eyes. If he wouldn’t look at her, how could he know what she meant? He couldn’t _really_ think she wouldn’t rather lock the door behind them and stay here, alone, drinking tea and talking Newton in their matching jumpers until the world made sense again? But there was no time for that, no time to explain. So instead, she flew across the space that separated them, got on her tiptoes, and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “You’re my hero,” she said, and flew out again before she had time to ponder what the light dawning in his eyes might signify.

That was the last she saw of him until the inquest. Edith kept her busy all morning and he stayed considerately out of the way, though her thoughts strayed to him all the more often because of that. She had hoped to at least be able to ride together, but when it came time to leave she found he had gone with the other guests in the first trip to Meryton.

“How considerate,” her mother said, drawing on her gloves. “They must have known we would want to be alone, as we’re in mourning.”

Jemma looked deliberately out the window as she spoke. “Mr. Fitz is in mourning, too. It must be even more dreadful for him today, since this is his uncle’s inquest.”

“Oh, but—” Edith started, only to fall silent when Sir Robert’s heavy hand came to rest on her knee.

High Street, a traffic trap in the best of times, was nearly wall-to-wall vehicles, ancient farm lorries jostling with sleek and shiny roadsters for prime positions. Around the door to the courthouse, constables were doing a yeoman’s job of keeping back the throngs of reporters but couldn’t quite manage it; Jemma screwed up her eyes as a flash went off in her face and hoped Fitz had got here early enough to miss them. Following her father’s solid bulk as he rammed through the crowds choking the corridors, she regretted again that she hadn’t been able to come early. Fitz shouldn’t have had to face this alone. If she could find him in the courtroom, perhaps she could slip away from her parents and sit with him, just for moral support. But it was too crowded when they arrived, every seat filled with curious onlookers, and she couldn’t even see his bright head in the mass of people, much less fight her way through them to his side. So she sat with her parents like a dutiful daughter and had to content herself with beaming encouragement across the room when he got up to give his evidence. Somehow, she thought he felt it.

After hearing Fitz’s evidence to identity, Maudie’s tale of discovering the body, and Mr. Nobby’s assessment of cause of death, Inspector Ross rose to his feet grandly to request a two-week adjournment. The coroner granted it. And that was that. Her mother stood and made her way out of the benches. “Well, that was certainly quick enough. I’m glad I told Cook not to hold lunch. Jemma, darling, when we get back run down to the kitchen and see if she can put the soup out in the Limoges bowls. They’re a trifle larger.”

“Oh, I—” She stopped in the aisle, speaking to her mother but looking at her father. “I thought I might come back with Mr. Fitz. I thought he might not like to be alone.”

“Oh, darling, I don’t think—”

“Of course,” Sir Robert said. “You’re all he’s got right now; of course you should stay. I’ll ask about the bowls if it’s that important.”

If they were the kind of people that showed affection in public, she would have hugged him right then—her darling dad pale from lack of sleep and the weight of far too much sadness, but still sticking up for her and what she thought was important. Instead, she squeezed his arm gently as they passed out of the room, then stood with her hands clasped to wait for Fitz.

She knew the moment he drew up beside her, though he didn’t touch her or speak or even stand very close. “I thought you’d be gone,” he said, eventually.

“Dad agreed I should stay. He said…I’m all you’ve got right now.”

He stared out at the dwindling stream of people, unseeing. “ _Have_ I got you, Simmons?”

She glanced up at him quickly, mouth falling open as she tried to process what, exactly, he meant by that. Had he got her right now? Had he got her in the future? Had he got her at all points in time, forever and ever amen? He couldn’t just ask a question like that without clarification; it was too broad, too general to result in a useful response. If she said “yes,” now, like her immediate reflex had suggested, what would that mean—empirically, forget what it meant to him or to her?

“Jemma Simmons! I hadn’t realised you were still here.”

Pulling her thoughts back down to earth, she managed a smile at the bespectacled man in front of her. “Mr. Nobby, how lovely to see you. Yes, I’m back for the inquest. You’ve been introduced to Mr. Fitz, I believe?”

“Never formally,” Mr. Nobby said, shaking Fitz’s hand firmly. “Well done with your evidence there; I’ve been to countless of these things, as you can imagine, and it’s rare to find a first-time witness so clear. I’d happily listen to you every time.”

“Thanks,” Fitz said, “but I hope I’ll never have to do this again.”

Mr. Nobby looked between them, spectacles gleaming as he turned his head. “Oh, but surely—forgive me for mentioning it, but the second death?”

Jemma shook her head, unutterably grateful they had dodged that bullet. “We weren’t here at the time.”

“Oh, my dear! I am glad for you. It wouldn’t be at all pleasant to hear such things about your own cousin. The medical evidence alone…”

“Smothering is an unpleasant way to go, I’d imagine,” Fitz said when she found herself unable to do so.

“Smothering?” Mr. Nobby looked surprised. “Yes, I suppose it is.”

The hairs on the back of Jemma’s neck stood up. She didn’t generally put much stock in intuition, but she hadn’t spent the entirety of her summer holidays dissecting old organs under the surgeon’s watchful eye without picking up some knowledge of his timbres. That was just the voice he had when she had solved part, but not all of a problem; it signified _go deeper, look harder._ There was something else there. “He _was_ smothered, wasn’t he, Mr. Nobby? My father said he found him with a pillow over his face. One does draw the conclusion…”

She let her sentence trail off invitingly, very carefully avoiding looking at either man. Though she could almost feel the pinpoint of Fitz’s sudden interest, he leaned against the back of the bench as casually as anything. “Suffocate would probably be the better word. That would be technically what did it—nothing to do with the pillow, everything to do with the lack of air. You suffocate if you eat something you’re allergic to, for example, but you aren’t smothered.”

Observing Mr. Nobby from under her eyelashes, Jemma nodded wisely. “Yes, but Roger wasn’t allergic to anything. I suppose there are other things that are dangerous to anybody—like your poor uncle.”

“It wouldn’t have been that, though. No boiler.”

“True.”

They turned as one to Mr. Nobby, matching expectant expressions on their faces. He shook his head, sorrowful. “Miss Simmons, you know it’s as much as my job’s worth to tell you anything like that.”

“Oh, what harm can it do? I’m marvelous at keeping secrets, and Mr. Fitz knows information classified by Whitehall itself.” He nodded to back her up. “And neither of us was here, so we aren’t suspects.” Mr. Nobby’s head shaking grew smaller, his eyebrows drawing together painfully. Almost there, she thought, and plunged the knife in. “He was my own cousin, Mr. Nobby.”

Mr. Nobby threw up his hands. “All right, all right! Only because I’ve known you since you were as big as my thumb. And you, Mr. Fitz—”

“Silent as the grave,” Fitz swore, holding up three fingers in the scout’s pledge.

He looked the aisle up, down, and up once more for good measure before motioning them to lean in to hear. “Prussic acid,” he whispered hoarsely, then straightened with a _harrumph_ loud enough to draw the attention of everyone left in the room. Fitz quickly returned to vertical as well, but Jemma couldn’t quite manage it. Prussic acid, known scientifically as hydrogen cyanide, a common but extremely deadly poison! Well, that opened up an entirely new realm of questions: where did the poison come from? How was it administered? When was it administered? And did that mean that this could, once again, be a regrettable accident?

“That’s very interesting,” Fitz was saying, “And you, um, you’ve seen enough of these situations to be certain?”

“Well, not many. But enough.”

“Curious, Simmons, isn’t it? The, um, the discolouration present in my uncle’s case—”

Watching him track Inspector Ross as he made his way down the aisle with the coroner, she nodded fervently. “Oh, absolutely.”

The inspector stopped on the edge of their little circle. “Coming, Mr. Nobby? I believe you still have some work to do?”

“Indeed, yes.” Mr. Nobby pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose. “Too much to do, as usual. You’ll forgive me, won’t you, Miss Simmons? Mr. Fitz, lovely to meet you.”

They waited to speak until the official investigation had exited the room, turning to each other as soon as the door closed with more words than could come out neatly. All the questions she had already asked herself were on the tip of his tongue, too, a fact which pleased her no little amount. It didn’t take two seconds, though, to know they had no answers and no way to reach them at this point. Not without further investigation.

“So,” she said, once again on his arm as they exited the courthouse, “we’ll just have to come up with some excuse to stay on a little longer. Today, at least. My uncle Morton will be coming; perhaps I can stay to see him. And you—”

“Look, there he is!”

The cry went up from the still-present pack of reporters, who turned their attention from Tony Stark lecturing lazily as he leaned against his car to circle Fitz and Jemma like Sleeping Beauty’s thorny hedge. Fitz stiffened under the flashbulbs, rapidly drumming the fingers of his free hand against his leg.

“Did you know about the will?”

“Were you close with Macpherson?”

“Do you know who killed him?”

Jemma let go his arm and shoved him half-behind her, chin tucked down to face all of them at the same time. “I say, leave Mr. Fitz alone! He’s had a dreadful time and he hasn’t got anything to say to you. Speak to Mr. Arthur Biggs, if you absolutely must.”

She was conscious of a ripple of amusement running through the circle. One seedy-looking reporter pushed his way to the front with a sardonic grin. “Miss Simmons, isn’t it, of Verinder Hall and Oxford? Are you well acquainted with the Macphersons?”

“Not at all. The Fitzes, however, are my dearest friends, and I shan’t let you bully him like this.”

There was an outright chuckle this time, and she came close to stamping her foot in dismay. Fitz plucked her sleeve, whispering urgently. “Jemma, come away, they’re dogs on the scent—”

“All the more reason,” she said, staring down the lupine leader. “They can jolly well go hunting some other fox.”

“Like me, perhaps!”

She snapped her neck around to see Stark swanning his way through the crowd, a completely unnecessary pair of tinted spectacles now perched on his face. “Gentlemen,” he said, throwing one arm around Fitz’s shoulders and another around Jemma’s, “these two charming children are personal friends of mine, and I wouldn’t take kindly to anyone bothering them. Be good little boys and run along now, and maybe I’ll come out and give you an interview later.”

“Is that a promise, Mr. Stark?” someone called.

He looked out into the group with eyes that were suddenly as dark and hard as obsidian. Jemma almost gasped at the transformation. “No, but it’s as good as you’re going to get.”

There was no mistaking that tone when coupled with that look. The reporters melted away like the last snow. Stark didn’t move until the last of them had gone, keeping Fitz and Simmons curled under his surprisingly strong wingspan. “There,” he said finally, “that should hold ‘em for a bit. And now I think you should come for lunch with me—I wouldn’t be surprised if there was another pack of them at your house, Miss Simmons. Anyway, Pepper says you two have some interesting ideas about filtration systems I might like to steal.”

“Buy, you mean,” Fitz retorted quickly.

Stark pushed his lips out thoughtfully. “I meant steal, but she did say buy, so we’ll split the difference.”

Fitz looked at her around Stark’s chest, obviously wary. She wasn’t sure why; surely he had already concluded that there would be no reason for Stark to kill Macpherson. Actually, a lunch with Fitz and Mr. Stark and Pepper, talking about something sane like scientific advancements, sounded absolutely ideal. “The Green Dragon has a rather good steak-and-kidney pie,” she offered in response to his unspoken question, fairly confident that would hook him.

It did. “All right,” he said, “as long as it can be private. I don’t want anybody bothering us.”

Stark let them go, bringing his hands together with a clap. “Absolutely. My room has a wall on one side and Pep on the other and a policeman at the door. They can’t get in unless we want them to. I’ll drive.”

They moved towards the car in a clump, Stark taking charge of her like he had a right to and Fitz following closely behind. There was a brief tussle at the passenger door to see who would be allowed to open it for her—Fitz won—but just as she was about to step in, her father’s Austin pulled up beside the Daimler. The chauffeur popped his head out through the window. “Miss Simmons! Your mother sent me to come get you. She says she needs you at the house.”

“Oh, but,”—she looked between her companions—“we were going to lunch. Can’t it wait?”

The chauffeur pulled the corners of his mouth nearly to his ears. “It seemed urgent, miss.”

Jemma just bet it was—urgent that she spend as little time with Fitz as possible, more likely. Still, it was impossible to say. With the kind of week it had been, she was rather bracing herself for catastrophe at every moment. She looked to Fitz where he stood holding the door. “Perhaps I’d better—”

“Of course you should,” Stark said briskly, darting around the car to open the Austin’s door. “Your mother is terrifying. Don’t antagonize her if at all possible. We’ll do it later, in London or someplace.”

She nodded an acknowledgement, not taking her eyes off the most important figure. He was stiff, staring at the ground; he didn’t meet her gaze even when she held his hand a second longer than necessary as he helped her out. It was decidedly _not_ all right with him that she went. She wasn’t sure it was all right with her, either, but what could she do? Stark was already handing her into her father’s car with a flamboyant bow. Ducking down to see through the window, he lowered his voice to a near whisper. “Don’t worry, Pepper and I will take care of him,” he told her with…was that a sympathetic wink? before straightening to tap the top of the car twice. “Drive on, my good man!”

It was all she could do not to stick her head out the window and watch them grow smaller in the distance. She couldn’t quite help herself from sneaking one look back, though, catching his eyes across the distance. _I’m sorry._

But for the first time, she couldn’t tell what he said in response.


	28. Tuesday Evening

As she expected, there was no urgent situation waiting to meet Jemma when she arrived home. Nor did one present itself at lunch, nor during her stroll down the road to see if Mr. Stark’s car was on its way, nor during the hour she spent on the terrace pretending to read but really trying to keep her wildest fancies in check. It had now been nearly three hours since she had left Fitz with Mr. Stark with no word from either; even the slowest service wouldn’t drag out a lunch that long and she couldn’t imagine Fitz agreeing to a joyride while time was running out. _Probably_ nothing had happened, but one couldn’t be sure, could one? One wouldn’t have imagined one’s own cousin would be poisoned with cyanide, either, and that had happened.

For at least the fifth time, she seized upon the information Mr. Nobby had imparted and tried to re-direct her attention. She had checked the study before going into lunch—her father’s scotch had disappeared decanter and all, no doubt signifying that the police suspected, as she did, that was the method of murder. She was glad she didn’t have to try to hide it herself. That still left the question: where did the poison ultimately originate? Cyanide was inorganic, but she highly doubted anybody besides herself would have the ability to produce it; that seemed rather complicated for what was likely a panicked afterthought, anyway. Far more likely the killer had obtained it somewhere else. And, unless they had brought it with them (hard to believe as the police had searched all the rooms on Saturday) or somehow managed to leave Verinder Hall on Monday without rousing anybody’s suspicion (near impossible with her mother around) it would have had to be from somewhere on the grounds. So. She didn’t keep it in the Icehouse in any form, not wanting to risk it, which meant that it had probably come from its domestic use as a pesticide. And who was responsible for that? Bucket, the gardener. Therefore, he was the one to speak to.

Having come to this conclusion yet again, she nodded to herself and picked up Svedborg. There would be plenty of time to talk to Bucket once Fitz got back. She didn’t want to go it alone. It was just a matter of waiting. Then again, it was odd that he hadn’t returned…

No. Stop. There was no benefit to that sort of speculation.

She thrust Svedborg under a cushion and strode off across the lawn towards the gardener’s shed.

It was a shot in the dark, really, because Bucket could be anywhere on the property at any given moment, but it was the best place to start. At the very least, she could poke around the shed and see if there were any commercial pesticides present. But when she arrived, the leather-faced giant was miraculously there, eyes nearly disappeared in the mass of ill-tempered wrinkles around them as he scraped dirt off his tools. She stood in the doorway with her hands clasped behind her and cleared her throat. “Pardon me, Bucket.”

He shot her a quick glare to let her know he acknowledged her presence.

“I came down to ask,” she said, as meekly as possible, “if you Mother had spoken to you about leaving the shed unlocked yet?”

It was the perfect opening gambit, she thought: something she could conceivably need to know for reasons having nothing to do with the murder, but also something she needed to know _for_ the murder, with the added benefit of providing several different directions to take her innocent questions afterward. Unfortunately, she had forgotten to factor Bucket’s irascible personality into her calculations. “Leaving it unlocked!” he ejaculated, “How does Madam expect me to lock it with the workings in pieces and the police badgering me at every turn? Is it fair to expect a man to do what he doesn’t have the equipment for?”

“Workings in pieces?” she said, eyebrows going up. “Is the lock broken?”

“See for yourself.”

Sure enough, the outside mechanism had been bludgeoned to bits and was now hanging out of the hole disconsolately. She poked her fingers in, trying to understand how it might have happened. She wished Fitz was here. “When did this happen, Bucket?”

He stopped clanking to cross his arms and scowl. “As I told Madam, it was whole on Friday and broken Saturday night when I returned. And I am not best pleased with it, either, considering I came back to find my mower in pieces and cigarette ends everywhere and my own private cupboard raided. It’s a downright hazard, miss, and I shouldn’t be expected to work in it.”

“Of course not,” she said, rapidly sorting through his diatribe. “No, indeed, I’m sure you’re entitled to keep your shed the way you like.”

Appearing gratified, he relented slightly. “Just so. A man’s vodka is his own, isn’t it?”

“You keep vodka in here?”

“For spraying on the plants,” he said, shifting his eyes guiltily to the side. “But it doesn’t matter now, as it’s all gone and the bottles smashed.”  

She had a strong suspicion the ratio of plant-vodka to stomach-vodka was grossly in the latter’s favour—which explained a good deal about Bucket—but she chose to let it pass unremarked, seizing the opportunity he had given her on a golden platter. Making her eyes very wide and innocent, she asked “Does it kill insects?”

“No, miss, it’s for weeds. You need something strong to kill them pests. Like I told the police, you have to use the good stuff.”

Taking a deep breath, she thought hard about how Pepper Potts would ask the next question before dropping it casually, running her hand along the handle of some hedge clippers. “What do you use for pests?”

“Prussic acid, of course. There isn’t anything better for killing.”

He didn’t know, she had to remind herself, even if the police had been questioning him, he couldn’t know that Roger had been killed with something very like this. Still, a sick feeling appeared in her stomach. “I suppose you keep that locked up.”

“Sure,” he said, “when the lock isn’t broken. But there’s no call for anyone to be mucking about with it. It’s only for rats and worms.”

Neither of which Roger had been. The sick feeling surged to her throat and she changed the subject abruptly. “But you will get it fixed soon, Bucket. I’m sure it isn’t safe to leave all this untended.”

The scowl returned, stronger than before. “You may tell Madam I will get to it when I get to it. If she would just send this pack of high-rollers home, we wouldn’t have it to worry about, would we?”

“So true,” she murmured. Then, getting an idea, she let out an irritated exclamation. “Bother! My lace. I’ve got to fix this.”

“I’m not stopping you,” he said, turning back to the work she had interrupted.

Dropping to one knee, she fiddled with her shoe—decidedly laceless—for a moment. Then, first making sure Bucket’s back was turned, she scooped a handful of dusty, discarded cigarette ends to shove into her pocket. It was highly unsanitary and would be a nightmare to clean, she reflected, but there was nothing else to be done. She popped to her feet, trying to keep her voice even and not at all suspicious. “Fixed! Thank you for your time, Bucket; I’ll be sure to tell Mother what you said.”

He made a noise in the back of his throat she took to be dismissal. Really, he was just the most unpleasant man. He must be a very good gardener, or Mother would never allow that kind of cheek…losing her balance by the door, she flung out a hand to catch herself and righted quickly, only to stare at what she had landed on. “Bucket!” she exclaimed, too surprised to be concerned with subterfuge, “these are the coveralls! Did you get new ones?”

“New ones? What would I need new ones for? I’m sure the old ones are good enough for me.”

“Yes, only—” She frowned, feeling like their careful construction of the crime was falling down around her ears. “I was in here on Saturday looking for one and there weren’t any. We thought they were—”

“And mayn’t I keep them in the greenhouse where they’re handy in strawberry time? I didn’t think there were any rules about where I keep them, so long as it’s out of sight.”

“Of course! No, certainly, wherever is convenient.” Mollification accomplished, she pressed again. “But you aren’t missing any or anything?”

He leveled her with the power of his grey eyebrows. “Miss, the only reason I haven’t tossed you out on your ear yet is because I like you. Liking only goes so far.”

“Thanks very much,” she said quickly, and beat a hasty retreat, still clutching the mess in her pocket. Oh, _why_ hadn’t she waited for Fitz? Now she had all this new information she couldn’t fit in and no one with whom to talk it over until it made sense. The lock hadn’t been picked, then—all right; they didn’t think the Weatherbys were lock-pickers, anyway. It had been broken all weekend—all right; that made it easy for someone to creep in to get the pesticide. But the cigarette ends and the missing alcohol, and the _lack_ of missing coveralls—those together suggested a completely different story, one that might have nothing to do with the murders at all.

Jemma made her way into the house up the back stairs, running to her room to empty out another bottle for the ashy sludge now lining her pocket. Fortunately there were still whole bits in there; she would need as much as possible to have any hope of identifying them. Not that she had much hope, anyway, never having made a study of cigarettes (perhaps she was Watson after all). But it seemed important: if they were Lucky Strikes, smoked exclusively by Tony Stark, there might be a reasonable explanation for the missing vodka. If, however, they were Ross’s suspicious Whifflets, there was something she and Fitz were missing.

Poking through the ashtray was a dirty business, and her hands were rather grimy when she was through. That she wouldn’t have minded if the exercise had been at all illuminating, but she was as much in the dark as before. They _appeared_ to be the same kind that were in the trays, but how one knew the difference between types of cigarettes was a mystery. Brushing off her hands over the fireplace, she very carefully didn’t touch anything as she considered her next step. The only thing to do, she decided, was to get a known sample of each and compare. The Whifflets would be easy, but she’d have to have Fitz’s help to get a Lucky Strike. No doubt he was already on his way back. But if not, perhaps she might try to reach him at the Green Dragon? That was an idea. And then she could be certain he was all right. She wasn’t sure she trusted Tony Stark to keep him safe, major weapons manufacturer or no.

After washing her hands, she walked briskly to the study and turned the handle, not expecting anybody to find the room where a man had died a pleasant place to while away the hours. She ought to get over that habit, she thought as she saw Mrs. Weatherby’s blonde head sticking over the top of the near wingback. The telephone cord twisted from its small table and over the arm of the chair. Jemma held her breath, torn between the possibility of hearing potential evidence and the possibility of being killed by a potential murderess. If she was quiet enough…

“More time? I guess it’s all right, if I have to. Yes. I’ll expect it tomorrow, then. Which—oh, that model? All right. I’ll let the boy know if I need anything else.” Mrs. Weatherby hung the receiver up with a loud clatter, then leaned back in the chair with a sigh. “You aren’t here to kill me, are you, Miss Simmons?”

Jemma sucked in a breath, hoping that was a shot in the dark. But Sonia leaned over the arm of the chair to peer around at her, slightly amused but also, Jemma thought, as hard as nails. “Should I?” she asked, seeking refuge in glibness to diffuse the situation.

Now she really _was_ amused. “I’d like to see you try. I think I have a good foot on you and I outweigh you by twenty pounds at least. I could break you in half pretty easily.”

Jemma felt for the doorknob behind her, heart racing. “Is that a threat?”

Yawning, Sonia got to her feet and stretched with all the predatory grace of a large cat. If anything, she had underestimated her physical presence. Jemma’s eyes darted around the room, searching for anything that she could use as a weapon if pressed. Lord, she had been stupid not to leave immediately. “A threat? From little old me?” Sonia laughed. Jemma joined her with a creaky chuckle. “No, just a reminder. There’s a murderer wandering around, you know. It’s be a pity for your parents to lose you.”

“I’ll take that into consideration,” Jemma said. Not that it was at all reassuring. “Are you finished with the telephone? I can come back if you’re not.”

“Oh, no. Just chatting with my dressmaker. They keep coming up with excuses for their delays—it’s really ridiculous. It would never happen in the States.”

She moved away from the chair and watched as Jemma inched past her, entirely inscrutable. Jemma reached out for the receiver with a shaking hand. If she could just get the operator on the line she would be safe; there would be a witness if anything should happen to her. “Hello, Operator? The Green Dragon, please.” It rang through immediately. “Molly? This is Miss Simmons at Verinder Hall. I wonder if I might speak with the man Mr. Stark had to dine with him today? The handsome Scottish one.”

“I’ll have to see,” the barmaid said, and put the phone down on the bar with a sticky _clunk_.

She waited for someone to come, bouncing uneasily from foot to foot and decidedly ignoring the prickling feeling at the back of her neck that meant Mrs. Weatherby hadn’t yet left. Come on, come on…her father had a very heavy paperweight on his desk she had no desire to have placed on the back of her skull.

“H’lo?”

“Oh, thank God, Fitz!” She clutched the handset tighter.

“Is something wrong?” he asked, alarmed. He had asked the same thing yesterday, she remembered, and reflected they really ought to remedy their situation so it wasn’t a possibility.

“No, it’s only—” Though she hadn’t heard Mrs. Weatherby move, the study door closed. Casting a sharp glance around the study to make sure she was really gone, Jemma lowered her voice and spoke rapidly. “Oh, lord, Fitz, Mrs. Weatherby was in here and she was _supremely_ suspicious, she told me she could break me in half and then laughed like it was a joke…I was so frightened. But she’s gone now.” She took a deep breath, willing her heart rate to return to normal. “Sorry.”

“If you’re fine, that’s what matters.”

She couldn’t help the smile that teased at the corners of her mouth. He did sound awfully concerned. “I am now. You are too—you’re still there?”

“Yes, Mr. Stark has been telling me all about the project he’s working on—the, you know, the thing I was telling you about—I can’t explain it over the phone—”

No, he certainly could not. “Oh, yes, that! Has it been—”

“Extremely helpful, yeah. I’ll tell you all about it sometime.”

_Sometime_ sounded awfully far away. “When you come home? After dinner, we can go out to the Icehouse. Mother will be too distracted to make a fuss.”

She could almost hear him fidgeting. “Yeah, only…I’m not sure when I’m going to get back.”

It was as if someone had thrown a pitcher of cold water at her. “Oh.”

“There’s a lot to it, you see, and there’s not going to be a better opportunity for him to explain.”

“I understand.”

“If you need to go back, I can find another way to town…the train, maybe?” He waited for her to respond, but she couldn’t seem to dredge up anything. So not only did he not intend to come back this evening, apparently he didn’t even want to ride back with her. She had thought it had been good, before, but maybe she was the only one. After a beat too long, he added hesitantly, “Was…was that why you rang up?”

“No. I wanted to ask you to get one of Mr. Stark’s cigarette ends—I thought we could compare them with some I found in the gardener’s shed, which, Fitz, there’s some definite new data there…but if you weren’t thinking we were going to investigate…”

She had hoped _new data_ would entice him, but to her dismay he leapt on the suggestion. “Only it’s what you said, Simmons. We’ve got other things to do, haven’t we? And it’s not like before, the police have got the bit between their teeth and it looks like they’re on the right track this time—”

“That’s a mixed metaphor,” she said, her feelings throbbing like a finger shut in a drawer.

“But you know what I mean, right? I think we can leave it to the police, honestly.”

The throb built to a serious smart, sitting like a lump in her chest. “Fine.”

“Is it?” he asked. She suspected he was trying to sound conciliatory, but it was too late for that. She answered briskly, as no-nonsense as Edith could hope to be.

“Of course. You finish up with Mr. Stark and I’ll take the things to the police on my way back. We’ll speak later this week, perhaps.”

“I put your notes in the Icehouse. If you’re looking for them. Um, Simmons, I—”

“Thank you very much,” she said primly, and put down the receiver without waiting to hear what else he was going to say. And she didn’t feel even a tiny bit of remorse.

Fitz stared at the receiver in his hand before clicking the connection. “Operator? Is my party still on the line?”

“No sir. Would you like to ring back?”

“No. Thank you.” He hung up and stared at the phone for a second, one hand on the back of his neck, then sighed. Obviously, she didn’t want to talk to him if it wasn’t about the murders—she hadn’t seemed to mind that in the car yesterday, but perhaps that, too, was just distraction. He hoped he hadn’t upset her by suggesting they ought to focus on their other projects. They had done what they could, he thought. Handing over their evidence, which she would do soon, was the final step to putting it entirely in the police’s hands. Surely they were better qualified to solve crimes, like she was better qualified to identify chemical formulae and he was better qualified to build serious weaponry. “Speak this week perhaps” was pretty darn clear, though. She was upset about something.

Sighing again, he made his way back upstairs. This lunch with Tony and Pepper really been fascinating, challenging in ways he couldn’t remember ever having been challenged before. Stark might pretend to be an idiot—might even be an idiot in normal life—but when it came to his work he was sharp as a tack. Fitz had filled a whole notebook with frantic shorthand and drawings. The more information the better, he thought, especially if he was going to be expected to oversee all this while Stark whooped it up in Malibu. Halfway up the stairs he remembered a question he had wanted answered about how often the cores had to be replaced and if there wasn’t a better element or alloy than palladium to utilise—perhaps Simmons would be able to think of one when he talked to her again. If she wanted to talk to _him_ again.

But when he entered the room Tony and Pepper were in a serious council, Tony leaning back on two legs of his chair and Pepper standing over him with her arms crossed and the corners of her mouth tucked back. It didn’t take much to realise she was highly disapproving of whatever Tony had just finished saying. “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” she said.

“Agree to disagree,” he said, bringing the airborne legs to the floor with a thump. “Fitz! Everything all right with the darling Jemma? No more murders I hope.”

“Er, no.” He put his hands on his hips and took them off again. “She wanted—never mind. Everything’s fine.”

“I like her,” Tony said musingly. “She has a good backbone to her. Physically and metaphysically. How long have you two—”

Fitz cut him off, trying to forestall his blush. “We’re not—that is, we don’t—”

“They’re not and they don’t,” Tony said to Pepper. “He brings her up every other sentence, goes running out of here like an express train at the sound of her name, and turns the color of a sunset when I very obliquely suggest something entirely innocent. If they’re not and they don’t, I’m willing to bet they will soon, aren’t you?”

Pepper shot Fitz a sympathetic look. “Leave him alone, Tony. He’s got enough on his plate right now.”

“Exactly. Which is why I’d like to take something off it.”

“Tony, no.”

“Is it my money, my company or not?”

Pepper threw up her hands, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. “Why do I even bother? You’ll do as you please, just like always.”

“Darn right,” he said, and turned emphatically to Fitz. “How would you like to sell me Macpherson Industries?”

Fitz blinked, his mouth falling open. “What?”

Tony leaned forward, eyes steady and serious. “Your company. I want to buy it. I’ve been thinking of branching over here but MI already has the infrastructure I need and taking over its holdings would save me money in the long run. It would be good for you too. I don’t think you’ll like administration much. It’s a nice chunk of money and you could do whatever you wanted with it, fund research for decades or spend it on a fleet of yachts or set your old mother up in a mansion for the rest of her life. Whatever makes you happy.”

Yachts, he didn’t care for. The rest of it, though…wasn’t it everything he had wanted? At least, it would give him the ability to do what he always wanted. _Research and development_. It wouldn’t even have to be marketable! It could just be for fun! Wouldn’t Jemma like that? But no, he couldn’t—he shook his head, trying to clear the thought. “I don’t know. It’s a bit, um, a bit too—”

“You really should. It’d be the best thing for everybody.”

“You can’t say that,” Pepper put in. “It _may_ be the best thing for you, though the jury’s still out about that, but equally may not be the best thing for Fitz. Don’t say anything now, Fitz. He’ll make you think you signed your life away later.”

“I couldn’t say anything now. I’d have to—to talk to Mr. Biggs, and my mam, and—” He didn’t say Simmons, but he thought it. 

“Well,” Stark said, pushing back and cracking his knuckles. “You do that and get back to me. There’s no rush. Before you left, we were talking about the problem of disposing of the waste products? Pepper can tell you they’re perfectly clean, just a little wet. A siphon takes care of the small reactors. I think you could probably repurpose the waste from the bigger ones, but I admit I haven’t played with it very much. Dull.”

Head spinning, he tried to concentrate on the admittedly brilliant science Stark was doing but failed miserably. How could he, when the elephant around his neck had just been bid on by a much larger zoo? No doubt a zoo that could take care of it better than he could. A zoo that had certainly had more training in the keeping of elephants. A zoo that—well, his metaphor was getting out of hand, but the point remained: Stark wanted Macpherson, which he, Fitz, really did not. Oughtn’t he give it to him? But what might he lose that he hadn’t considered yet?

After a few minutes he was able to respond with words instead of nods and his notes coalesced into sentences rather than scribbled exclamation marks. Later, he would be astounded to see how much sense he had made when his overwhelming memories of the evening contained a decent amount of scotch and the panicked feeling that he was strolling on the edge of a precipice. Stark talked on, dropping the idea of the purchase in every fifteen minutes on average. Pepper made sure he had plenty of water and ordered up fish and chips all around eight. He managed to get his question out and even, he thought, made a useful suggestion regarding impulse-powered pistols. And then at eleven o’clock, they bundled him in the car and drove him back to the Hall, since he remembered—God knew how—that the butler locked up at midnight.

“I’m not sure when we’ll see you,” Tony called, “unless you have good news for me. Then I’ll see you in the boardroom. Give me a call—Mayfair 8263. But not for a few days.”

“Good night, Fitz,” Pepper said, holding her hand over the side of the car for him to shake. “If you have a headache in the morning, take some aspirin.”

He held up a hand as they rolled away. He wasn’t tipsy—what kind of Scot would he be if he couldn’t hold his liquour?—but he did feel a little punch-drunk. It had been a very long day with more shocks than he cared to remember, though not, perhaps, as bad as yesterday. At least today it was just information and decisions. He might lie awake staring at the ceiling trying to decide what to do with MI, but unlike yesterday, he had no reason to lie awake staring at the ceiling wondering exactly what Jemma Simmons thought they were. She had made that very clear. Even so, as he trailed up the stairs he couldn’t help casting a regretful glance at the Family Corridor. She was probably already gone, of course. He would have liked to say goodbye, to plan another tea, to at least get her phone number at college, but it was par for the course, wasn’t it? He had always known it would end this way.

But when he unlocked his door and entered the tiny room, something crunched beneath his shoe. Stooping, he found a piece of scented note-paper folded in half. Lavender, he identified, and his heart leapt a little in his chest.

_Dear Fitz,_

_I couldn’t leave without seeing you again to finish what we started yesterday. Meet me in the Icehouse at six?_

_-Jemma_

He read it through once, then again. Yes, it was perfectly clear: she was still here and she still wanted to speak with him, to “finish what they started yesterday”. What that was he didn’t know—well, at least, she couldn’t mean that, could she? But then…he traced the neat letters of her name. Her _Christian_ name. So maybe. With the note under his pillow, he went right to sleep and dreamt of flowers and her all night.

Strolling out to the Icehouse the next morning, he breathed in large gulps of the early morning air and reflected that he could easily become a morning person if she was nearly the first thing he saw. She belonged to this time, he thought, she was light and promise and beginnings and made the world seem new and clean, and he would be happy to bask in her sunlight his whole life. Even if she only meant to finish their accusation of the Weatherbys, it would be enough for him. Being with her was enough for him.

He had his key already in his hand as he came down the path, but the door of the stone structure was standing open for his arrival. “Jemma!” he called as he entered, “wait til I tell you—”

He froze, horrified. Sitting on the table where he had left it was the parcel of her notes on the poison gas antidote.

It was on fire.

He rushed in without thinking, afraid that she was still here somewhere and determined that she should not lose her life’s work if he had anything to say about it. There should be a water bucket—there it was—knocked over, of course, where was a coverall to smother it—damn, they had cut it up—

And then a dull thud shook his brain, and he saw stars, and pitched forward to bang his head on the edge of the table, and there was a wrench at his hand and a rustle of clothing, and then everything went black.


	29. Early Wednesday Morning (And What Came Of It)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm warning you right now: it was a miracle I kept this thing under 6000 words. Schedule accordingly. :)

He was only out for a second, but it was long enough. When he roused himself enough to roll onto his back to look for the door, he found it shut tight and engulfed in a red sheet of flame that licked up the door frame and lapped her framed periodic table, jumped to the tall cupboard, destroyed the paper shade of the lamp. He had to stop it, he thought fuzzily, and didn’t remember until he had struggled to his feet that there was no water to douse it and no blanket to smother it, even if it was still small enough to be put out that way. The Icehouse was lost, then, barring a miracle. At least it was stone and she wouldn’t lose the building. He managed a regretful glance at her notes, burning merrily next to the centrifuge that had brought them together in the first place. If he got out of here, he would get her a proper one. Get out? Could he get out? If he wrapped his jumper around the doorknob…he had one arm out of the woolen sleeve before he realised that the wrench had been his key, and the one she kept in the lock was missing, too. Flinging himself at the door would be a waste of energy and probably end in serious burns. The throbbing in his head made him feel sick every time he moved, anyway. “Help,” he called weakly, already choking on the smoke. “Help!”

Around the twelfth time he shouted he began to wonder if this was how he would die. Smoke inhalation knocked you unconscious first, he thought…the carbon monoxide built up and put you out until you would never wake up. Like Uncle George, actually. Funny, that. Two presidents of Macpherson gone the same way in one week. You couldn’t make those things up. He should write a will, like Uncle George…tell Jemma it was hers, but she could sell it to Tony…Mr. Biggs would know the way. Confusedly, he dug around in his pocket for a bit of paper he seemed to remember. Lavender paper, he thought. Something odd about it. “Help!” he said again, wishing only for enough time to write his last wishes and messages. If someone would only come long enough for that. And bring a pencil.

It took him some time to understand that the pounding he was hearing was not the pounding in his head. “Help!”

“Fitz?”

He would recognise that voice anywhere. It cut through the haze in his brain like a knife. “Jemma? Jemma, is that you?”

The pounding resumed, punctuated by demanding, nearly prayerful sobs. “Oh, God, Fitz! God, _no._ Fitz, come out of there!”

“Can’t,” he said, “key’s gone. Get away from the door, Jemma, it’ll get you.”

He was not upset. In fact, he was very calm. He only wanted her to get away. There was no need for both of them to die, and if one of them was going to live it had to be her.

“No! No, I’m not leaving you!”

“Please, Jemma. You have to.”

“I won’t! I won’t! Fitz, _please_ , there has to be a way—”

“No,” he said, “everything is burning. Jemma—” he stopped to cough, a deep hacking bark that ended with him in a heap on the floor, “Jemma, I’m sorry, your notes are on fire. Your gas mask notes.”

It almost sounded like she stopped breathing and he thought he may as well die right now if he had caused something to happen to her. Then she beat at the wall again, once, twice, and screamed. “Fitz! Darling idiot, don’t you know you’re worth a hundred million times more than that?”

He must be dying, he thought as his eyes drifted shut. That was the only explanation for why he was hearing these things. He didn’t care. “Say it again.”

“More than that,” she repeated obediently, her voice at a hysterically high pitch, “more than that research, more than any research I’ll ever do, more than anything I ever wanted in the world—oh, God, please, somebody help me!”

That wasn’t what he had wanted to hear again, but it would do. He smiled, coughed again, and tried to find the words to tell her all the things he wanted her to know, but he died first. At least, that was what he thought happened. Suddenly a light burst over his face and he felt himself being lifted up, up, up and when he managed to drag open his eyes for a half-second he saw shiny golden hair and a slim neck. That was one in the eye for the priest, then. Apparently angels wore bobs.

Then he heard Jemma—well, of course Jemma was here, it was heaven, wasn’t it?—saying over and over, “Give him to me, he’s mine.”

“Hold on, love,” a new voice said, and angels were…Cockney? “Let’s all move away from it, yeah?”

He felt the person carrying him grunt something, but he was too busy trying to come to grips with the fact that maybe he hadn’t died to strain to catch it. And then he was going down, down, and his head was resting someplace that was rather hard, if he was honest, but must have something to do with Jemma because it smelt like her, and hands were frantically running all over his body and something wet was dripping on him. That finally did it. He had to know where the wet was coming from. Screwing his eyes open, he spoke up into Jemma’s inverted, but still beautiful, face. “I’m not dead then?”

The breathless voice that answered him came from somewhere by his feet. It sounded familiar, but not like anyone he knew. “No, but you came pretty darn close.”

“She saved you, Fitz,” Jemma said, tears rolling down her nose and falling onto his. Ah, that explained.

“Who?” he asked.

Her eyebrows quirked in confusion and she glanced up at the person by his feet. “Oh, it was—I don’t—”

“Agent Barbara Morse with the SSR.” Mrs. Weatherby’s face swam into his field of vision, smiling kindly. “At your service.”

“What is happening,” Fitz said, and then his body finally gave into the impulse it had been fighting off since the door opened to reveal his dead uncle, and he passed out cold.

 

* * *

 

“Ah, Mr. Fitz. Welcome back to the land of the living.”

Fitz raised a hand to cover his eyes from the piercing light. “Did I actually die or not?” His voice sounded muffled and slightly damp, like it was coming from a cave. With his other hand, he followed the elastic strap holding his aching head together until it hit the source of the echo: a leather-and-metal cup with a long rubber tube snaking over his shoulder. An oxygen mask. The irony was delicious. Slowly opening one eye, he looked up at the white-coated figure looming over him.

“No, certainly not. You’ll be right as rain in no time. We just wanted to keep you here until you woke up to be sure.” The doctor—for so he must be—waved the torch again. “Other eye, now.”

It was a supreme effort to hold both eyes open while the light hit his brain stem, but he managed. After verifying that his pupils were reacting normally, the doctor made him take and hold a breath before he would remove the mask. Fitz knew he was only following procedure, but chafed at the delay anyway. He had a million questions. “How long have I been here?”

The doctor wrote something down on his notepad. “Oh, two-ish hours. It would have been shorter but we had to give you some knock-out gas so we could stitch up your head—going to have a nice little scar there, I think. Not bad, really. With all the dangerous stuff Miss Simmons keeps in that lab of hers it could have been really bad for you.”

He gingerly touched the lump under the bandage on his forehead. “It’s for her work, she needs it. Is it all burnt?”

“That I don’t know. I’ll let your guests in; perhaps they can tell you.”

“Guests?”

The doctor nodded, folding up his glasses to stick them in his breast pocket. “Inspector Ross is downstairs, I expect to talk to you about what happened. And that menace in skirts is kicking her heels in the hall and has been since they brought you in—demanded a private room and tried to sew you up herself, though she hasn’t any practical training. Really, I was afraid for my life.”

Smiling hurt like hell, but a grin nearly split his face anyway. Struggling up onto his elbows, he said, “Jemma’s here? Can I see her?”

“I wouldn’t dare try to stop you.” He winked, then poked his head through the curtain. “Miss Simmons? He’s awake. You can come in.”

There was a quick patter as she ran towards the curtained area surrounding them, then a flurry as she burst through it. Rather than come all the way through, though, she stopped in the gap, hands clutching the curtains on either side of her and her eyes very wide. Her hair was hanging in strands around her face, there were stains on her blouse, she had soot on her cheek, and she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Not quite able to hold himself up on one elbow, he turned his right palm towards her. Without hesitating, she put her own in it and came to sit on the edge of the bed. “All right, Fitz?”

“All right now,” he said. “Is the Icehouse burnt down?”

“Oh, I don’t know—I didn’t stay to see. Truly, you’re all right? How are your stitches?”

He tried to shrug, couldn’t manage it, shrugged with his eyebrows instead. “Ask the doctor. I can’t feel them at all.”

They looked around for the doctor, but he appeared to have vanished into thin air. “He’s probably gone to get Ross,” she said, forehead crinkling, “he’ll want to talk to you about what happened. I told him you probably won’t remember, though—that’s common after head injuries. Do—” She faltered, dropping her gaze to their clasped hands. “ _Do_ you remember anything?”

He tried, but each time he got close to a firm memory the throbbing in his head shook it to pieces. “Hazily,” he said finally. “It’s like the smoke’s covering what happened, too. I went down to the Icehouse and saw your notes burning…went in to save them…something hit me on the back of the head and when I woke up, I was trapped. Then you were there and…Jemma, am I making things up, or did Mrs. Weatherby carry me out?”

Jemma smiled, swallowing her disappointment. Of course she knew it was unlikely that he would remember details, but she _had_ hoped he would remember…but never mind. Thank God, there would be another time for that. Squeezing his hand, she said, “You’re not making it up. That is, she _did_ , but she isn’t really Mrs. Weatherby. That is, she _is_ , but she’s also an undercover agent for the Strategic Scientific Reserve—”

“What?” He looked pitiful. “Go slower, I don’t understand.”

Calling up her mental powers, Jemma told him what had happened after he passed out:

_“Fitz!” she cried, too panicked to think clearly and certain he had died in her lap. “Fitz, don’t—”_

_Mrs. Weatherby/Agent Morse laid a calming hand on her wrist. “Calm down. He’s fine. Look, his breathing is regular and he closed his eyes—people usually die with their eyes open.”_

_“But the smoke inhalation,” she sobbed, “and the chemicals I keep in there, who knows what they’ve done—”_

_The other woman looked thoughtful. “You have a point. Hunter,” she said over her shoulder to the small man who had appeared, like a genie, out of nowhere, “go down to the road and use the pay phone to call for the police or the fire brigade or something. Tell them you saw smoke. It’ll be true in a few minutes anyway.”_

_“Right-o,” he said, putting his hands on his hips, “and why isn’t it better for you to make the call from in the house? They’re more likely to believe it.”_

_“Because I have to sneak in and get myself cleaned up so no one knows I’ve been saving people from burning buildings. Unless you’d rather I blow my cover and the entire operation to pieces? I’m sure that would make Coulson very happy.”_

_“Coulson?” Jemma gasped, reeling from just the latest of world-shattering revelations. “Fitz’s secretary Mr. Coulson?”_

_Hunter eyed her. “Looks like you’ve already blown it, Bob.”_

_Sonia—Barbara—Agent shook her head. “He says they’re clear. They can’t keep their mouths shut with each other, but outsiders beware. Just go, will you?”_

_“All right, all right.” And he legged it away towards the gate, leaving Jemma alone with the unconscious body of the man she had suddenly realised she didn’t want to live without and a very much alive undercover agent. As Fitz had so rightly demanded, what was happening?_

_Agent Morse surveyed her levelly. “All right,” she said finally, “you’re tough, so you can handle this. I have to go back to the house to keep my cover. If anybody not with the police asks you, don’t tell them the door was locked. Say that you went in together and he got hit when something fell or something like that. I can’t be mentioned at all.”_

_“But the tracks. There’s three sets of footprints.”_

_“Good eye.” She looked impressed. “But no one will be able to tell that after the firemen come. The police won’t believe you, but that’s all right—Ross already knows who I am, though he doesn’t know why I’m here.”_

_“Why are you here? Is it to do with the Project, with Stark and Macpherson?”_

_Rolling her eyes, Agent Morse said, “No, that was just a headache. It worked out for the best, though. Without me Tony Stark would have given the whole thing away half a dozen times. Lucky David Weatherby is so blindly in love with me he’ll forgive anything. Quick, Miss Simmons, time’s wasting—what are you going to say?”_

_“That Fitz was never locked in,” she repeated obediently, “and you were never here. At least, I won’t say those things, because that would be telling, but—”_

_“You’ve got it,” Agent Morse said, rising to her feet and dusting off her knees. “Good luck.”_

_So Jemma had waited in the grass, wiping the blood from his face and watching her lab go up in smoke. She couldn’t bring herself to care. Odd, because when she had seen the smoke billowing from beneath the door and heard the flames crackling all she could think of was saving it. But then Fitz’s voice, weak and choked, had pushed its way through and she knew with indisputable clarity that her life’s work was nothing at all compared to him. Eureka! she felt like crying aloud; I have found the best thing that has ever happened or ever will happen to me. And she didn’t just want to talk to him, and she didn’t just want to kiss him, and she didn’t just want to do science with him—she wanted all of it, everything, the whole world with him. So Professor Weaver had been right, after all: sometimes, you just had to wait for things to shake loose._

Of course she didn’t tell him all that. It was one thing to say in the heat of the moment; another thing entirely to try and choke out when the danger had passed and he might say something back. All the same, there were parts of the story she couldn’t quite look at him for, even though he listened with his eyes closed, gamely protesting that he was fine and she needed to stop fussing. “So,” he said when she reached the end, “we can tell the truth to Ross, but no one else?”

“That’s the size of it.”

“You know what this means, though.”

“I’m going to have to practice?” she offered, making him laugh and then wince.

“No—well, yes, but no. It means she can’t be the murderer.”

“Oh!” She hadn’t even been thinking about the murders, but she supposed he was right. “If she’s working with Mr. Coulson and trying to keep Tony Stark from spilling the beans, she has no reason to kill your uncle; if she’s not really Mrs. Weatherby, she has no reason to kill Roger.”

“Unless that’s her mission,” he added.

She made a skeptical face. “Lord, if that’s the case there had to be an easier way than marrying an MP on the off chance that she would be invited to a house party at the same time as Roger. No, I bet it has something to do with Weatherby himself.”

“Does that clear him, then, since he couldn’t have killed Roger?”

“We don’t know that. He wasn’t there, but there’s no reason why he couldn’t have put the cyanide in the scotch before he left. It’s the special occasion scotch, remember; my father doesn’t drink it any old evening. And he could have stolen it from the gardener’s shed at any time.”

“What?” he asked, and she remembered that she hadn’t told him what she had learned from Bucket. The events of the last three hours had rather driven it out of her mind. Before she could explain, the curtains parted and Ross, along with Sergeant Tompkins, squeezed in.

“Don’t mind us,” Ross said, “I doubt you two know anything we don’t already. Except what happened this morning. Mr. Fitz? Can you tell us what that was?”

Fitz looked at Jemma and Jemma looked at Fitz.

_Here goes nothing_ , he said.

She squeezed his hand in response.

All told, it was a short story; he really didn’t remember any more details than what he had told her. She filled in where she could, but it seemed little enough to go on. Ross, stroking his mustache, seemed to think so too. “It seems like a fair guess,” he said at the end, “that someone wanted to kill you and not just destroy Miss Simmons’s property. Knocking you down should have been enough for them to get away without locking you in and keeping the keys. The question is, of course, why.”

“Perhaps our investigation was getting too close to something,” she said, having spent a decent amount of time thinking about it while she was waiting.

“But who knew we were?” he asked. “Miss Potts—”

“Unlikely.”

“Your father—”

“Impossible.”

“Agent Morse, apparently—”

“Ridiculous, yes, but how can we know that for sure, Fitz? Someone’s managed to kill two people right under our noses; couldn’t they have found out about our investigation the same way?”

Ross had been watching them impassively, his eyes darting back and forth like a tennis ball. “Unfortunately, that’s speculation. We’ll have to attack another way. How did you know to go down, Mr. Fitz?”

“Oh—” He glanced over at her, eyes deep with something she ought to understand but didn’t. “I had, um, a note under my door when I got in. I thought Miss Simmons asked me to meet her there at six.”

“I didn’t,” she said.

Ross turned to her. “Then why were you there?”

She had gone to the Icehouse to retrieve her parcel, nominally; in actuality, though she could hardly admit it to herself, she had an odd inkling Fitz might be there and wanted to see him. But she was too ashamed of her behaviour on the phone to have done anything so bold as shove a note under his door. “I was just locking up before I left. It was an accident.”

“A lucky one,” Ross said, to which Tompkins was heard to give a hearty Amen. “But this note, then. Where did it come from?”

“That explains,” Fitz said, snapping his fingers. “I knew there was something odd about it, but I thought it was the signature. It was, in a way—the handwriting was too neat. It wasn’t yours.”

She had written one thing in his presence, so she was a little astounded that he could say that with such confidence. “If you still have the note, we might be able to perform handwriting analysis?”

“My coat pocket, maybe?”

But the pocket proved to be empty.

“That’s right,” Fitz said. “I took it out to make a will. It’s probably gone.”

“Well, that’s a bad break.” Ross shook his head. “It might have helped a good deal. I suppose it’s just back to the business of the keys again. Unless it was left unlocked?”

Fitz shook his head gingerly. “I think I was the last one in, and I locked it tight.”

“Well—” Heaving himself to his feet, Ross nodded to Tompkins. “That’s about it for us, I think. We’ll let you know if there’s anything else. I would appreciate, though, if we could keep the attempted murder to ourselves? There might be a trap there; you never know.”

They murmured their thanks in unison, then Jemma remembered something from the long distant past. “Oh, Inspector, half a moment. I’ve got something for you.” She dug into the pocket of her sweater, pulling out the two vials she had intended to drop off at the police station on her way back to Oxford. They rolled around in Ross’s giant hand like pebbles. “That one’s from the vent—your people left it when they cleaned up. And that’s cigarette ends from the gardener’s shed. I thought you might be able to tell what kind they were? I can’t seem to make anything of them, anyway.”

“Yes. Hmm.” The inspector cleared his throat. “Well, thank you for collecting them, but I don’t think we’ll need these. We have plenty of our own samples, though we can make little enough of them. The cigarettes are Whifflets, which apparently everyone smokes, so that’s no help. As for this fabric, it tells the story you’d expect: an old, clean cloth, nothing much on it except dust.”

“Not dirt?” Fitz asked, surprised. Another thing she hadn’t had time to tell him.

Ross shook his head. “No, no dirt. Smells a bit odd—like mothballs, if you can believe it—but there’s nothing there that we can tell. You are welcome to do what you like with them, Miss Simmons. You’re a chemist, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” she said briefly, accepting them back. No dirt? Smelled like mothballs? Could someone have soaked it in camphor before stuffing the vent? What purpose would that serve, though?

“Well,” Ross said again, “thank you both. I do hope you feel better soon, Mr. Fitz. We’ll leave Abernathy out here, just so you don’t have anything to worry about.”

Then they left, closing the curtains carefully behind them so that she and Fitz were alone in a white cocoon. Not until then did she realise they were still holding hands. “Well,” Fitz said, “I suppose that’s that.”

“I suppose.” She looked at the vials in her free hand, thinking hard. Camphor! Or, of course, naphthalene. Why in the world would anyone take the trouble to preserve this rotten little bit of cloth? “Fitz,” she said slowly, “I think there’s something else here. Something Ross doesn’t know how to look for. I’d like to get this under a microscope, run some tests and see.”

He nodded. “The Icehouse is out, but do you think the hospital would let you use their labs?”

She glanced up, surprised. “I thought you didn’t think we should look into this.”

“What? No, I—only because you said you thought—that was before, though. Now there’s something you can do the police can’t.” His eyes were too earnest to disbelieve him. Had she misunderstood so grossly? “But would they?” he pressed.

“If I asked.” The holidays before dissections with Nobby had been spent here as a volunteer nurse; she knew the hospital like the back of her hand. Not to mention that her father was a regular donor. “But I’m not leaving you.”

“You’re being silly.”

“Oh,” she said, a little stung, “I suppose it’s silly to not want to leave you alone after someone’s just tried to kill you. Forgive me, then; even the cleverest of us must indulge ourselves sometimes.”

“Abernathy’s here,” he said, the corner of his mouth quirking up. “You heard Ross. They don’t know what to do with it. If you do, then you have to do it. You’re the only one that can.”

He was right, of course, much as it pained her to admit it. If the police were stymied, she had a responsibility to try everything she could—not only to get justice for Macpherson and Roger, but to prevent anything like this from happening again. Another time, Fitz might not be so lucky. She would do anything to prevent that. “All right,” she sighed, “I’ll call Abernathy in. There has to be someone around who can make sure no one puts a pillow over your face.”

“I’ll put the oxygen mask back on. Though it’s maybe the most uncomfortable thing I’ve ever worn, including a high collar. There has to be a better way to do it.”

She got to her feet, handing him the heavy mask. “You’d be better off to hit someone with it. The tank must weigh–” She broke off as he sat up sharply and seized her left hand, which had been hidden from him before.

“What happened?” he demanded, eyes dark.

She glanced down at the clean white bandage in surprise, having nearly forgotten it was there. “Oh, that? I rather battered my hand trying to get to you. Didn’t even notice until we got here and the nurses pointed out it was all blood. But it’s fine, Fitz, really.”

He turned it over gently, calluses catching on the fine threads. “Not broken?”

“Nothing of the sort. It will be healed before your stitches are out.”

Groaning, he fell back on the pillow without letting go. “And I have a board meeting next week. This will be sure to inspire confidence.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I think it’s rather dashing—scars earned in an attempt to save a scientific breakthrough.”

“I guess it was, at that.” She would swear his chest puffed out three sizes, eliciting a swell in her own as well. Then his face fell, almost imperceptibly. “I’m sorry I couldn’t quite manage.”

“Oh, Fitz.” He didn’t remember, she reminded herself; her impassioned proclamation had disappeared into the void beyond recall. Just because every word was burned into her memory didn’t mean that she could say it again. Still, he would beat himself about it forever if she didn’t make him understand how ultimately little she cared about anything else. “It’s all right. I’ve done it before; I can do it again. Anyway, it’s not a total loss—do you think I’ve only got the one set of notes? Didn’t I tell you I excel at preparation?”

He nodded, still staring at her hand, and she knew she had been unsuccessful. She had to say something else, try it again—but when she tried to call the words up, they were nowhere to be found. _I cannot heave my heart into my mouth_ , she thought desperately, and found her answer. How had Cordelia proven her love to Lear, ultimately? She had _shown_ him. Never mind that something had gone wrong the first time she tried this. This time, she would leave no doubt. She closed her eyes, took a breath, mustered up every particle of the truth of how she felt towards him, and reached out.

The skin by his temple was soft as silk under her fingertips, giving way to slightly bristly whiskers where he hadn’t had had the chance to shave; his jaw fit into the palm of her hand like it had been made for it; his eyes were bright with a light that was nearly blinding. She knew her own were shining too. “The notes don’t matter,” she said, imbuing each word with all the weight she could. “Only you.”

To her dismay, he dropped his eyes. The darling idiot, did he _still_ not understand? But it was only for a moment, and when he looked up the light had become a beacon, pure and reverent. “Do you…do you still mean it, then?”

“Mean what?” As soon as she said it she knew, but he was already explaining. 

“What you said earlier, about me being...”

“More than that,” she inserted. Her heart was pounding so fast she thought it would run itself down. “I didn’t think you remembered.”

“I did. I do.”

“Why didn’t you—”

“It didn’t really seem like the thing to blurt out in front of Ross and Tompkins, did it?”

Holding back pure joy that wanted to burst out of her, she couldn’t keep her voice from quivering when she protested. “You might have said before.”

“Well, I’m saying it now. I didn’t want to bring it up in case you didn’t mean it when I wasn’t going to die, but. Um. Do you?”

She looked down at him and tried to breathe, knowing, without doubt, that there was no turning back. Whatever happened to her after this, it would stem from the next words out of her mouth, depend entirely on the answer she gave this brilliant, kind, incredible man now staring at her with his whole golden soul pouring out of his face. She knew what he was offering her. It ought, perhaps, have been difficult to accept; after all, it was everything. But, in the end, the answer was as easy as learning to care for him in the first place. Not taking her hand from his jaw, she slowly sunk back onto the bed until their taut, hopeful eye line was completely level. “My darling, thick-headed genius,” she said, “yes.”

“Yes?” he said.

“Yes.”

She waited for a further response—was he really going to let her have the last word like that? She might have been worried if not for the outright adoration clearly evident in his warm gaze and slightly-dropped mouth—but none was forthcoming. “Well?” she asked finally, “aren’t you going to say something?”

“What…what should I say?”

She laughed fondly, stroking the soft place by his ear. “You can’t think of something yourself?”

“I can’t think of anything,” he said, “other than that I would very much like to kiss you properly.”

Her fingers stilled as her breath quickened. That would be a natural result, wouldn’t it? She had almost forgotten. “So do.”

He looked startled. “Right now?”

“Yes, quick, before someone else comes to interrupt us.”

“Um. Right then.” He cleared his throat and sat up straighter, hands wavering in front of him like he wasn’t quite sure what to do with them. Seeming to come to a decision, he rested one lightly on her waist to pull her closer and rested the other just under her ear, leaving his thumb free to sweep over her cheek. She obeyed the gentle direction and leaned in, watching him the whole way. Is that what she looked like, she wondered: like she had been entrusted with the keeping of the Crown Jewels, like she had been granted access to all the scientific libraries in all the world, like she had been handed the key to happiness? And would it always be like that, or was it just this first magical time? Either way, she wanted to savour every second. She kept her eyes open until her world had shrunk to nothing more than the feel and the smell and the sight of him (if that was truly the whole world, it would be enough to discover the rest of her life). Then he hesitated, unfathomable sea-blue eyes meeting her rushing brook-brown.

_Are you sure?_

_Absolutely._

And as if he had only been waiting for confirmation, he closed the distance between them so quickly she had to throw a hand behind her for balance and snake the other around his shoulders to keep him as close as possible. Without pausing the more interesting work, he readjusted the hand at her waist to hold her more securely. She responded by winding her hand through his hair, careful to avoid the bump. He held her tighter. And all the time their lips slid and danced across each other like their sentences in conversation, each trying to get their own way in pleasing the other and succeeding as often and deliciously as they failed. Their first kiss had been enough to haunt her dreams, but this one, Jemma felt, would leave a permanent mark. She would never be satisfied with anyone else. “Not redundant at all,” she murmured while he trailed barely-there kisses towards her ear.

“What did you say,” he asked distractedly, then stopped and cupped her face in his hands. “Hey, hey, why are you crying?”

Until he mentioned it she hadn’t noticed, but sure enough when she blinked she could feel drops clinging to her eyelashes. She did her best to shoot him an exasperated look, but she had serious doubts as to its efficacy between the tears and her ear-to-ear grin. “It’s involuntary.”

“Because you’re—”

“Happy, Fitz! I’m so very, very happy.”

He rubbed the back of his fingers quickly against her cheek, a smile teasing at the edge of his mouth. “Do you always cry when you’re happy?”

“Perhaps—I’ve never been this happy before.”

The smile escaped, though she only caught a glimpse before he ducked his head and brought her wrist to his mouth, nudging aside the blood-stained cuff to press a kiss over her ulnar vein. “Me neither,” he breathed, sending shivers up her spine.

“Which is odd, isn’t it?” she said, “when someone tried to kill you earlier and nothing’s actually solved at all.”

“But everything _is_ solved, isn’t it?”

“Oh, absolutely.” What were murders compared to the mystery of the human heart? Having solved her own and been granted Fitz’s, she felt invincible. “Solved enough for now, at least. I think we can safely while away a few more minutes.”

“Excellent,” he said, and when he captured her mouth again he was still smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now I'm afraid you're just going to have to imagine them snogging for a week straight, because I will not be posting on Friday. The next two chapters will cover the actual solving of the crimes and I want to give myself enough time to make sure that everything is exactly right. 
> 
> Many thanks to everyl1ttleth1ng for holding my hand through the kissing bits!


	30. The Hospital Lab

It was probably just as well that he had already been reassured several times that he was not and had never been dead, or he might have assumed it to be the case. As it was he was having a hard time believing that he was, actually and in reality, kissing Jemma Simmons—what’s more, that she was, actually and in reality, kissing him back. But he didn’t think he could dream up anything this perfect. The fragrance of her hair intoxicated him, its leftover smoke smell only reminding him how close he had come to never having this; his fingers roved over her impossibly smooth skin, trying to learn it by heart; the taste of her was probably enough to live on, after all. She seemed to feel the same, diverting her attention from his mouth every so often to press a kiss to every square millimeter of his face. He returned the favour as often as she would let him and delighted in cataloguing every single place that raised goose bumps. Why had he always thought kissing was complicated? It was the easiest thing he had ever done. Maybe it was just her. Maybe kissing was just difficult for everyone else because the poor fish weren’t kissing Jemma Simmons.

Far too soon, she pulled back just enough to let him take in her whole face at once. He would have pouted had she not been so beautiful, all blown pupils and rosy lips and—bother, was that mark his fault? He touched it gently with the tips of his fingers. “Er, you’ve got—I’m sorry.”

Trembling, she leaned into his hand. “What are cosmetics for? I’m not sorry at all.”

“Yeah?” he asked, doubts he hadn’t realised he had floating away. “So, it was—”

“Excellent, I thought—”

“Yeah, me, um, me as well.”

She looked up wickedly from under her eyelashes. “For a first experiment.”

It would take a very strong man to not kiss her looking like that, and he, already addicted, was not that strong man. From the way she eagerly met him halfway, he rather guessed that was the point.“But honestly,” she said when they stopped to breathe, “not that I wouldn’t prefer to do this indefinitely, but you were right about the cloth. I really ought to analyse it.”

It took a second to remember what she was talking about. Even when he did, he found it somewhat difficult to care. “Later,” he said, rubbing a strand of her hair between his fingers, “after someone interrupts us, as they inevitably do. It would be wasteful not to continue to take advantage of this opportunity.”

“But it would be equally irresponsible to sit on what could be vital information.”

“Technically, it’s not our job.”

“Technically, it’s our duty as good citizens.”

“I think the Empire will continue just fine without us. At least for a half-hour.”

“Well…” She hesitated, glancing at her watch, then jerked back sharply and leapt to her feet. “Goodness, has it been that long? Fitz, they’ll be coming by any minute to check on you; we must postpone for now. I’m not sure my mother could bear another scandal this week. Golly, I must look a mess.” In a flurry, she tried to smooth down her skirt with one hand while tucking back her hair with the other, a quick and magical twist and jab that put his tendrils—yes, he was going to call them that—firmly away from prying eyes. Evidence of their recent activity quickly disappeared from everywhere but her face, which glowed with a happiness and contentment he recognized as the twin of the warmth filling his chest as he watched her. “How’s that?” she asked finally, turning to him.

His chin was on his chest, he knew it was, but he couldn’t help it. She was luminescent. From the tilt of her eyebrows, some response appeared to be required, so he said the only thing he could: “You look beautiful.”

She flushed, clasping her hands together in front of her. “I’ll accept that answer this once, but in future you must always be perfectly honest with me. No ‘yes darling’ nonsense. Do you promise?”

The casual way she threw out mention of the future— _their_ future—nearly took his breath away. Somehow, his life had suddenly transformed from a bleak and lonely drudge through time to a brightly illuminated adventure with a companion the likes of which he couldn’t have imagined. He would never understand how he had gotten so lucky, nor did he expect to ever be anything but astonished and grateful that it was so. If he were any good with words, he would write her poems. Not being so, all he could do was show her. “In that case,” he said, “your collar is mussed.”

She had just managed to get it to lie flat when the doctor popped his head through the curtains, staring fixedly at the space above Fitz’s head. “All right in here?”

From a quick glance at Jemma, Fitz gathered she too was wondering exactly how much of what had occurred had been audible outside the room. Obviously, he wouldn’t take any of it back, but he wasn’t keen on Constable Abernathy spreading the story down at the station. “All serene,” he said, trying to catch the doctor’s eye. “How long do I have to stay here?”

The doctor entered fully, pulling out his spectacles only to peer over them. “Well. I’d say you look rather healthy, all things considered. Any difficulty breathing?”

“No,” he said. Over the doctor’s shoulder, Jemma bit her lip.

“I’m only concerned about the head. With a bump at the front and the back, there’s a decently good chance you’ve been concussed and we don’t want to let you go only to have you tumble down and hurt yourself again.”

“If he doesn’t walk, though,” Simmons put in. “Could he get up and sit in a chair?”

The doctor considered. “Possibly. How would he get anywhere else, though? And what’s so urgent that it can’t wait until he’s cleared?”

“I need his help with something for Inspector Ross. Something we can’t do here. Couldn’t we borrow a wheelchair? We won’t leave the hospital.”

“Oh?” The doctor raised his eyebrows. “Where are you going?”

“The lab?” she asked, smiling hopefully. “I only need a few apparatus. And possibly a small gas torch.”

“Miss Simmons…”

She barreled on without listening. “Only, Inspector Ross told me to make what I can of it, and my equipment is all burnt. Please, Doctor. It would be such a help.”

The doctor wavered, then cracked. Frankly, Fitz was surprised he had held out so long. “All right, all right. But not for long. And if Mr. Fitz gets a headache or starts to feel fuzzy you bring him straight back. And if you muck up the equipment, Miss Simmons, I’ll have it out of your father and the police, in that order.”

It took much longer than Fitz thought necessary to make the journey to the lab—he didn’t really see why he needed the blue robe and three blankets, and Simmons could have managed to push him there herself rather than calling an orderly—but eventually they were settled, snug as bugs with the constable strolling the corridor and peering through the glass window periodically. “But why did you need me?” he asked. “Not to complain, but I don’t see how much use I’m going to be.”

“I’ve only got one hand, remember? I might need to borrow yours.” Handing him a pair of gloves, she leaned over the chair and added in a lower tone, eyes sparkling, “And I rather like your company.”

Fitz reflected that it was, perhaps, a good thing that Abernathy was so inconsistent in checking on them, or he might not be able to keep himself from kissing her again right here and now. If this kept up, his dream of sharing a lab might have to be shelved in order to get work done.

As it turned out, though, once into it they had no trouble working easily together. After he cut the cloth into tiny squares, she subjected each sample to a battery of tests and called out the results, which he then wrote down into the notebook she had brought with her in her pocket. Like clockwork, they ruled out the physical presence of both camphor and naphthalene, then isolated the leftover cotton and tested the dust to see if there was anything odd about it. There wasn’t. All she was able say for sure was that Ross and his specialists were correct: the fabric was quite old and very clean, nothing odd about it beyond the odor and the presence of an oddly-coloured bleach stain. “And after all,” she said, “a bleach stain on a coverall is nothing to hang someone over.”

“How old do you think it is?”

She frowned down at it. “I’m no expert, but—twenty years, maybe? I’m fairly confident this is a vegetable dye, so that puts it sometime during the war.”

“It’s just incredible that there’s no dirt,” he said for the fifth time. So it wasn’t one of the gardener’s missing coveralls—which, she had explained, weren’t missing at all—it had to have belonged to _someone_ , and the presence of bleach suggested a cleaning woman of some kind.

“Perhaps it was someone who just came into contact with bleach by accident, or to sterilise something. I use it often enough; my coveralls are all over bleach spots.” She picked up one of the glass dishes that held the samples and peered at it skeptically. “Although, this is rather a funny colour. It’s not like any I’ve seen.”

“Is that—”

“Relevant? Perhaps. Is there any charcoal left?” He shoved it over to her and she patted his shoulder distractedly. “I was thinking, if you sold to Stark, what about the patents? Would you still keep them, or would you have to sign those over too?”

“I don’t even know if I have the rights to the patents now.”

“Goodness, what did you and Mr. Biggs talk about?”

He shot her a look, to which she smirked a response.  

After the seventh dead end, she pushed the goggles off her face with the back of her hands and sighed. “Perhaps there’s nothing, Fitz. All I can tell is that this fabric is in very good condition for being as old as it is, no doubt due to the presence of mothballs in its past. It’s probably a dead end.”

He shook his head. “There was something odd about it; you said so yourself. What made you think that?”

“I don’t know.”

“It must have been something.”

She sighed again. “Only, why would someone want to save this? Someone certainly _did_ , you can smell it, but it’s just old, cheap fabric. Things like this are meant to be used up and tossed out. Goodness knows I wouldn’t save an old lab coat.”

“All right,” he said slowly, “so, perhaps it’s not something significant physically about the cloth, something we can test and see. Perhaps it’s something significant that it means.”

“I don’t like that.” Her forehead wrinkled up adorably. “If we can’t test it, how can we prove it?”

“Perhaps we can’t. Perhaps it will just be a decent theory that makes sense of all the facts.”

Peeling off her gloves, she rested her elbows on the table and wrapped her hands around her throat. “The problem is that we’ve followed the facts as far as we can regarding your uncle and it’s led us to a dead end. Weatherby makes sense to kill Stark but less to kill Roger; even if he put prussic acid in the scotch before he left, why would anyone put the cushion over his face? They couldn’t think it would fool the police.”

 “So we’re back at the Second Murderer theory, then.” He frowned. “But that makes even less sense. Then we’re looking for an opportunistic killer who wanted Roger dead for a completely unrelated reason. If that’s the case, we may as well give up right now.”

“We’re in over our heads, Fitz.” Hooking a nearby wooden chair with her foot, she dragged it over and collapsed into it. “There’s no empirical proof, so we can’t come to any conclusions. I’m not even sure what’s important anymore, are you? It seems to have got lost, rather.”

Between being offered a chance to be rid of MI, nearly dying, and the best half-hour of his life, Fitz understood what she meant. His hand went to his pocket for his notebook before he realised it would still be upstairs with his clothes. “Have you got the list in your notebook?”

“The List of Critical Data?” At his nod, she shrugged. “Somewhere, I imagine. Not that it will help; it’s so old, probably every question is irrelevant. Who knows what kind of information is essential now?”

“Some of the same, I imagine, especially if Roger’s death is connected to Uncle George’s,” he said, beginning to search. How had he ever mistaken the old-fashioned up-and-down handwriting for her messy scrawl? In the tiny notebook she got about five words to the page, none of them legible. “Don’t get all gloomy now.”

“I thought you were the pessimist between us,” she said, raising an eyebrow.

He paused in his perusal, finger stuck in the pages. “When you escape death and kiss the most wonderful girl in the world all in one morning, it tends to shift your perspective on life.”

She flushed, smiled, and made exasperated eyes at him all at once. “I suppose I’ll just have to be the reasonable one.”

“By all means. But please don’t think I’m not going to remind you whenever I can that you said pessimism was reasonable.”

“Mm,” she said, utterly demure. “Well, perhaps I’ll just have to make sure you remain in an elevated state of mind, then.” 

It wasn’t fair to a man, to talk so sweetly with your mouth and so wickedly with your eyes. Darting a quick look over his shoulder, he cursed Abernathy and made sure his mouth was shut as he bent back over the notebook. “Here’s half,” he said finally. “I think this says, ‘Who was alerint fom dancing rum?’ but I’m not sure.”

“What? Let me see that.” She took the book from him and scanned the page before rolling her eyes. “Honestly Fitz. It clearly says ‘Who was absent from the drawing room?’”

“Mm, not clearly.” 

She rolled her eyes again. How she could manage to make him feel as if she found him at once excessively irritating and exceedingly precious with one gesture was something he could not understand, but looked forward to investigating in more detail. “That question is irrelevant with the information we know now; almost anyone could have had the half-hour necessary to stuff the vent. Even Roger—he left the room twice! Even my father, I suppose. The next question, too: ‘when did everyone go to bed?’ That just opened up more possibilities.”

“What about the third one, then,” he said. “Who had the ability to plan the murder in advance?”

Putting the notebook down in her lap, she leaned back and propped her feet up on the footrest of his wheelchair. “Everyone knew Mr. Stark was coming, and most of the party had been to the house before. Everyone, I think, except the people we know couldn’t have done it: Mr. Stark, Miss Potts, Mrs. Weatherby, and yourself. Roger’s out. Dot was in the drawing room all night. That leaves us with Mr. Weatherby, again, and Cousin Mary, which doesn’t make sense, does it? What motive does she have to kill Mr. Stark?”

“His father jilted her at the altar,” he suggested. “Oh, no, her fiancé or husband had a bad heart, didn’t he?”

“Fiancé,” she corrected, “Jack something. She keeps his picture in her drawer.”

“Then you’re right, that doesn’t make sense. So much for that question, then.” He snagged back the book and resumed flipping through, trying to locate the first half of the list. There had to be something in this snarl of clues and facts they could get purchase with. Not that he would know it when he saw it, with the disaster the notebook was in. “Remind me that it’s my job to write the Christmas cards.”

He said it lightly, intending a joke, but the silence that met him was alarming. Maybe he had placed too much meaning on words meant to be thoughtless. Maybe she hadn’t meant— He looked up sharply, stammering in his haste to explain. “I didn’t mean—it was only—”

“I know what you meant.” Putting a hand on his knee, she gave him a lopsided smile deep with promise before sobering. “Fitz, I can’t help feeling as though we’re missing something important. There’s a question we haven’t asked of the data that would provide clarity, if we only knew what it was.”

Finding one question in the reams of data produced was a daunting prospect. Even a quick recollection brought three or four unanswered questions to mind. “Do you know which data it is, specifically? Only there’s so much of it—”

“If we knew that it wouldn’t be—”

“Missing, yeah, I know. But is it old or new? Is it a question about my uncle, or Roger, or the cloth, or the shed, or…”

“I have been considering the shed,” she said. “The Icehouse makes it problematic.”

“Because of the keys?” he asked, “Yeah, I was thinking that too. You had your key, I had mine, and the inside key was in the lock, so whoever hit me had to have another one.”

“The master,” she filled in.

He nodded. “If the murderer had the master keys to get into the Icehouse, why did they have to break the door to the shed? Unless—”

“—they didn’t have the keys yet? But they had to, to get into Peacock. At least, they had to have them sometime Friday night. I suppose we don’t know when the lock was broken.”

“And we couldn’t be so lucky as to have Mrs. Weatherby or whatever her name is see who did it while she was out strolling that night.” Struck by a sudden thought, he tapped the air in front of him. “You don’t suppose she did it, do you? To have a place to meet this Hunter person? That would explain the cigarettes.”

Simmons shook her head. “Now we know who she is, I doubt she would need to break the lock. She can probably pick them, after all—which explains how she got into the bathroom on Sunday.” Drawing her eyebrows together, she added slowly, “Though, I suppose, it is possible that the broken lock has nothing to do with the murders at all. What did Miss Potts say? People have lives they say nothing about? Perhaps someone broke in for unrelated reasons of their own.”

“So the shed would be a giant red herring.”

“Apart from the fact that the lock being broken let someone in to get the rat poison that killed Roger. We can’t forget that.”

“No. But if it’s the same murderer that came after me, they would have been able to get at the prussic acid anyway.”

“The keys, Fitz,” she said, putting her face in her hands. “It seems like it all comes back to the keys: the murderer had them Friday night and this morning, but they were in the drawer when I went down to get them on Sunday.” He was about to mention that there was plenty of time on Saturday to replace them when she suddenly straightened, an idea lighting up her eyes. “Fitz! Roger heard him. Or her. On the stairs. Remember?”

“No,” he said.

“Yes, you do. He thought it was Dot, sneaking off to see Stark, but she said no—I believe her, I think—it must have been the murderer putting back the keys. And they overheard us talking about it, and that’s why they killed him!”

“No,” he said again, “no, Simmons, that’s ridiculous. If Roger thought it was Dot he couldn’t know who it was, so the murderer was in no danger.”

“It was _someone_ with keys,” she said stoutly. “I remember him saying so. Who else would need them? Anyway, now you’re assuming. Why should the murderer be clever? There’s nothing particularly clever about any of this. Stuffing a vent is simple. Prussic acid’s in every yellow novel you read, and the cushion over Roger’s head? Did they expect that would fool the police?”

He understood what she was saying, but she was ignoring critical data. “The methods aren’t complicated, but what happened is, and it’s making things awfully difficult for the police. That shows some intelligence.”

“But what’s complicated is an accident. The murderer couldn’t have known about the room switch.”

“Why not?” he said, more to push back than because he really thought it. But then they stared at each other a second as the words filtered through, and he saw the exact moment it landed in the realm of possibility.

_Why not?_

They were silent, thoughts racing along similar lines to the same conclusion.

She voiced it first, her forehead in furrows and her eyes troubled. “But,” she said, “then the murderer would have wanted to kill your uncle. And we didn’t—there’s no one—” She stopped, aghast. “We didn’t even _try_ , Fitz. Once we found out no one knew, we didn’t bother considering who might have a motive. _That’s_ the question we didn’t ask.”

She was right, he realised, horrified. Nowhere in the pages and hours of speculation had they ever sat down to parse out why someone might want to kill George Macpherson, so sure were they that no one could have known both of his presence at the party _and_ his presence in the Peacock Suite. And that was still true, wasn’t it? Fitz demanded of the facts. Both were necessary to have committed the crime. Even if someone had happened to overhear the last-minute room swap, now that the vent-stuffing material hadn’t come from Verinder Hall it was doubly impossible for it to have been a last minute plan. “But this cloth thing.” He gestured to the glass dishes even though she had leapt to her feet and was now pacing away from him, her fists in tight white balls at her side. He leaned forward, reaching out with reason instead. “Unless your mother keeps trunks of twenty-year-old lab smocks around, that’s stillpre-meditation. And no one knew he was coming but you and your parents, and the Starks, and Uncle George and me.”

She stopped short, the line of her back so tight it could snap. “What did you say?”

The words played over in his head. “Oh, the Starks? I don’t know that they’re actually that way, but it was quicker to say.”

Turning slowly, she couldn’t even manage an exasperated eye roll. “No, before. An old lab smock? From twenty years ago?”

“Ye-es,” he said slowly, “but I don’t know, Simmons. It was just to fit in.”

“No, but Fitz.” She snapped the goggles back over her eyes and scrabbled for the discarded gloves, eyes bright with what he recognised as realisation—of what, he didn’t know. “Hand me that dish,” she said, “and a slide. I’ve got to look at this under a microscope.”

He did as directed, trapping the small piece firmly between two pieces of glass and handing it to her by the edges. “What are you looking for?”

Slipping it into place without answering, she adjusted the magnification and peered through the scope. Then she moved the slide around in the field, made the light brighter, gave a cry of discovery, and looked up at him. “Come see this, Fitz. I _knew_ something was funny.”

With a guilty glance towards the corridor, he put up the footrests and pulled himself up by the counter. “What is it?” he tried again, blinking to banish the bright colours that meant he rose too quickly.

Without being asked, Simmons ducked under his arm and pulled it over her shoulder, bracketing his waist with her bandaged hand. “The edges of the bleach stain. Look at them.”

He did so, straining his eyes against the light. “What about it?”

“The way they shade off,” she said, “it’s indicative of a very high concentration of chlorine. This isn’t the stuff you use to clean mold; this is a very nearly pure form of chlorine. It isn’t used hardly at all anymore, except in industrial situations.”

He twisted slightly to look down at her. “So you’re saying this _is_ a twenty-year-old lab smock?”

“A twenty-year-old lab smock _doused in chlorine_. _”_

Her eyes were very sober, almost pleading. He knew that she was hoping he would understand on his own, seeking his confirmation so her conclusions weren’t faulty. Looking into the microscope again to buy some time, he turned it over in his head: a lab smock from twenty years ago covered with pure chlorine. A lab that dealt with chlorine. Twenty years ago. And then it was clear. “Macpherson!” he shouted, making her wince, “sorry, sorry, but that’s what you’re thinking, yeah? This came from Macpherson during the war. But how—” He stopped, slightly dizzy at how quickly pieces were falling into place. Bits of conversation—information—things that hadn’t made sense that suddenly did—

“Fitz,” she whispered, “if that’s what it is, then…I think I know who did it. I don’t know _how_ , but I think I know who.”

Out in the corridor, Constable Abernathy marched resolutely back and forth, peering through the window every so often to make sure the two were safe but trying to give them their privacy. He admitted to having a bit of a crush on Miss Simmons in his younger days and, now he was happy with his Essie, he hoped she could find happiness too. This Mr. Fitz seemed a decent fellow. He looked like he could take care of her, even if now she was taking care of him. Abernathy peeped in again, hoping they had gone back to the shiny looks and shy touches they had started with. For a bit now, they had been discussing something serious, frowning and shuffling through that little book and a stack of papers, waving their hands at each other with all the wrong kind of passion. Trouble in paradise? He chewed at the idea worriedly.

“Abernathy?”

Only Ross’s careful training on Proper Composure saved him from looking a fool. He hadn’t heard them come to the door. “Yes, miss?”

Mr. Fitz answered over Miss Simmons’s shoulder, she being too busy eyeing Abernathy in concern. “We need to speak to Ross. For real this time—we have information about the murder.”

“Which murder, sir?”

They answered at the same time. “All of them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got my science checked out by a sort-of-expert months ago to make sure it was feasible. Then it turned out he was right to equivocate about his specific knowledge. To that end, please don't look too hard at the sciencing! It's not any worse than what they do on the show itself, I promise.
> 
> The penultimate chapter, "They All Sit In A Room And Listen," will be up Friday if it kills me!


	31. Everyone Sits In A Room And Listens

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember how I told you this was the penultimate chapter?...it's not. It got too long. And since this is mostly information you already know, you get it today so we can FOR REAL I PROMISE solve the crime on Friday.

Four hours later, they skulked back to Verinder Hall under police escort. Fitz, allowing his subconscious mind to sort and structure the events of the day, reflected idly that there really was no such thing as an unalloyed pleasure. On the one hand, he was finally wearing his own trousers, but on the other they smelt rather dreadfully of smoke. He could feel his forehead again, but each of the stitches felt like a fiery rope. Jemma sat beside him in the back seat holding his hand in both of her own, but she had worried her bottom lip between her teeth the whole trip, staring out the window and giving monotone responses only when asked a direct question. The skin of her lips, which had been miraculously smooth and pink that morning, were now flaking and raw. As they turned in the gate, he bumped her shoulder with his own. “Hey.”

She turned her head but not her gaze.

“You know this is for the best, right?”

“I don’t know that, actually. I don’t know why we can’t just wait for our calls to go through.”

“The quickest way, then,” he relented. “And isn’t that better than having it drag out?”

From the front seat, Ross threw in his ha’penny’s worth. “Much better, Miss Simmons, you’ll see. If we do this right we can let all those people go, the inquests will be scarcely any trouble, the whole thing will be over in no time at all. British Justice at its best.”

Simmons pressed her lips together and didn’t respond. A sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, Fitz understood. A person who killed other people had to be stopped, but the off-hand way Ross spoke about the process was too matter-of-fact, too casual. If they were successful tonight, the ultimate result would be the loss of another life. That wasn’t easy to ponder. Putting his hand over hers, he changed the subject. “Inspector, have you told them anything about what happened this morning? So we can be sure the story’s straight.”

“I thought you two would have a better idea of what would be believable, so I haven’t told them anything. You could say—”

Jemma broke in. “We’ll say that we went out, saw the fire, and Fitz stumbled over something and hit his head. You can’t see the bump at the back yet.”

He could feel it, though, throbbing out from a lump as big as an egg. “Do I have to trip and knock myself out? I’m not as clumsy as all that.”

“I’ve considered the alternatives. This includes all the pertinent information while concealing the necessary bits. Oh, and please remember my hand is burnt, not cut and bruised? It’s only first-degree; I just put my hand down for a moment to leverage myself while I dragged you out.”

“Dragged me out?” he yelped, trying not to let his wounded ego have the upper hand. “Simmons, you expect them to believe that you could drag my dead weight—”

“I could if I had to,” she said, and sighed. “I suppose you’re right. So you hit your head, but you didn’t faint until we got outside. From blood loss. Do you think we should stand or sit when we present?”

“I hadn’t thought about it.”

She continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “Sitting makes us less threatening, but it also diminishes authority. Is it a lecture or a presentation? And did you want to speak first, or shall I? If they ask questions—”

The longer she talked the faster the words tumbled out. She was spiraling out of control like an aeroplane in flames; he had to stop her before she crashed. “Jemma.”

“I’m only thinking—”

“Simmons!”

He noted for future reference that the last name could grab her attention where her Christian name did not and met her anxious eyes squarely. “Think of it like practice for when you defend your dissertation. You won’t be afraid then, will you?”

“No,” she said, “but that’s not _actual_ life and death. It only feels that way.” Then she pulled back, eyebrows knitted together. “Did I tell you I wanted to go for my doctorate?”

Casting his memory back to the far reaches of Monday afternoon, he tried and failed to recall. “I can’t remember. You do, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she said, “but I never told anyone that. I can’t believe you just knew.”

He shrugged, slightly embarrassed. “ ’s nothing,” he mumbled. “Only, you’re so clever and you love academia so much, it makes sense. It’s only logical.”

“Still,” she said, and squeezed his hand. “Thank you, Fitz.”

“For what?”

“For yourself.”

He took his turn to look out the window, pretending to be very interested in the sight of Stark’s empty Daimler rolling towards the garages. If he was lucky, she hadn’t seen the tears that sprung to his eyes—well, he had nearly died this morning! Surely a man could be a little emotional after that.

Jemma both saw and understood. She hadn’t meant to make him cry. She had only been suddenly overwhelmed by his kindness and steadiness and the way he somehow understood what she needed and supplied it without thinking, and she had to make sure he knew. Ross was somewhat of a damper on what she’d rather do.

The car rolled to a stop in front of the door. “Well, here we are,” Ross said, and waved off the constable who was already moving to come around to the door. “I’ve got it, I’ve got it.” With difficulty, he stuck both feet into the drive and heaved himself out. “I’ll just go in first.”

Silently, they watched him disappear into the house. Fitz leaned forward to follow him as far as possible before turning to her. “Are you ready?”

No, she didn’t think so. She felt cold and shaky and she couldn’t manage to keep her breathing even; worse, her mind was getting stuck like a record in the same old grooves and the needle refused to skip. She needed to be clear and concise, straightforward and unemotional—all the things her mother and father had trained her to be from the time she was small. But this was too big. She couldn’t manage. And her usual coping methods were nowhere to be seen: for the first time in her life, the facts were no comfort. “No.”

“That’s fine,” he said, “me neither. We’ll get through it together.”

Popping open the door, he got out gingerly and turned to extend a hand. She took it without hesitation, and kept it until they were at the door of the drawing room. She didn’t want to let go then, either, but decided it was perhaps better for everyone if they only had one major shock to deal with at a time. Instead, his hand hovered without touching at the small of her back, directing her to the chairs Ross had set up by the fireplace. His rostrum, she thought with a flicker of amusement, and sunk into her seat with her gaze firmly trained on the carpet.

The inspector rocked back on his heels, stroking his mustache. “Ahem. Yes. Now we are all here—”

Dot’s voice, lacking in fire but not in power, broke in. “We aren’t.”

“Ah, yes,” Ross said, “due to their position, the Weatherbys have been released to return to Town. There’s no reason to suspect that the incident this morning had anything to do with either of them.”

They had decided on that course of action back at the station—it would be difficult to explain about the Weatherbys without giving anything away—and Jemma was impressed at the way Ross twisted the facts. Would they accept it? Looking around the room, Jemma felt like it had been a year since she had seen any of the people now scattered through it. Her mother, decidedly worse for the wear but still bravely made up and poised; Miss Potts, inscrutable beyond the layer of concerned interest; Dot, the lines around her mouth turned to caverns; Cousin Mary, re-wearing the dress they had motored down in and appearing to have shrunk inside it. Only her father and Tony Stark, sitting like bookends on either side of the office door, were unaffected.

“Must be nice,” Dot said bitterly. “Carry on, then.”

Ross cleared his throat. “As I was saying. Now we’re all here, I can inform you that we have a solid theory of the crime, thanks in no small part to help from Miss Simmons and Mr. Fitz. We believe there is still helpful information that you will be able to provide. To that end, I will turn the floor to them so they can present their findings.” Gesturing somewhat literally to the floor, he stepped behind their chairs and clasped his hands behind him. “Miss Simmons? Mr. Fitz?”

“There has to be a better way to say that,” she heard Stark mumble. Stark, the instigator of all the action and the person most untouched by it. Stark, the place where they had started and the place where they would finish. She remembered standing in the shed a lifetime ago, lost for the words to begin; she was in exactly the same place now, only she wasn’t searching for a lie this time. The truth was just as difficult.

“Right then,” Fitz said, clambering to his feet unsteadily. “We’re academics, so you’ll forgive us if our explanation seems long-winded. Where do you think we should start, Simmons?”

She glanced around the room again, feeling her heart beating out of her chest. “The end,” she said in defiance of all logical progression. Call her a coward, but she couldn’t face it yet. “That is, this morning.”  

He nodded, understanding. “This morning, then. I expect you all know about the fire. What you may not know is that the source of the fire was a parcel of notes Miss Simmons has compiled in the course of her research on an antidote to the poison gasses that were so terrible in the last war. By itself that doesn’t mean anything, because it was in a prominent position and paper is very flammable, but it’s worth noting for the future. Anything else you wanted to say about that, Simmons?”

“Tell them about the—”

“The keys, yes. The other thing to note is that all known keys to the Icehouse were accounted for, apart from the master key which is kept on a ring with the rest of the house keys in—”

“An undisclosed location,” she cut in with a sharp glance at her father. He raised his eyebrows skeptically.

Following her gaze, Fitz stammered, “right, yes, an undisclosed location. I don’t know where it is. But whoever set the fire in the Icehouse does, and that’s the important thing. Anything else?” She shook her head. “Before this morning, the last major event was, of course, Roger’s death. I think Simmons ought to tell you about that, because she did most of the investigating while I was otherwise engaged.”

He turned to her expectantly, one hand in his pocket.

_You can do this._

She wasn’t sure, but with his confidence behind her she thought she could try. Taking a deep breath, she stood beside him and smoothed out her skirt. Then she put her hands in her pockets. Then she tried holding them in front of her. What did one do with one’s hands in these situations? She needed something to hold and look at—and then the tiny notebook was in her hands, appeared like magic from Fitz’s pocket at exactly the right moment. How did he do that? Shooting him her thanks, she glanced down at the book, which was already open to the right place, and began. “Roger’s death was an unforeseen event on everybody’s part, I think; while we were all naturally a little nervous at the beginning, after so much time had passed it made sense that the murderer had either accomplished what they wanted to or been scared away from any further action. But he did die, so we had to ask why.”

“Obviously he knew something,” Dot said. “Probably didn’t know he knew it, the fool, but that wouldn’t mean he couldn’t make things very hot for somebody.”

Behind them, Ross rustled; they exchanged impressed looks before Fitz responded. “Yes, that was the conclusion we ultimately came to. Of course then you have to ask _what_ he knew, and _when_ he found it out.”

“That was too big a task, especially when we were gone for Sunday night and most of Monday. It wasn’t until later that we realised what it must have been.” She looked at the notes, trying to plot her next move.

“Well, what?” Edith asked impatiently.

“We’ll tell you that when we get there,” Fitz said on her behalf, and gestured for her to continue.

Jemma sought her father across the room and spoke to him directly. “A wise man tells me that crimes are committed at the intersection of motive and opportunity. We had a motive, however nebulous, for Roger’s murder; now the question was one of opportunity. Mr. Weatherby, Fitz, and I were in Town. From Mrs. Weatherby, we learned that the party had spent most of Monday avoiding each other, thus prohibiting any sort of alibi—except for my father and Cousin Mary, who were together talking about gardening at least part of the afternoon. That meant that they at least were innocent. Except that—” She stopped to get confirmation from Ross. At his nearly invisible nod, she continued. “Except that it turns out he wasn’t suffocated by the pillow. Roger died because there was prussic acid in my father’s special scotch.”

For the first time since they had begun, the room stirred out of its apathy. Sir Robert, obviously pained at the loss of his treasured alcohol, spoke for them all. “So the poison could have been put in at any time. Well, any time since Sunday, as I myself drank some Saturday night and am still alive.”

Jemma glanced at Fitz. That was information they hadn’t had, but it fit right in with their theory.

“But,” Sir Robert continued, “where did it come from, Gem? The murderer didn’t bring it with them, I suppose.”

She shook her head. “They didn’t have to. Bucket keeps cyanide in the shed to deal with pests.”

Understanding sparked in Sir Robert’s eyes. “And the murderer had access to the master keys.”

“No.”

The room turned to look at Tony Stark, lounging lazily with his feet kicked out in front of him. The picture of ease, he still couldn’t hide the burning intelligence blazing out from his careless expression. How had she thought he was an idiot? “No,” he said again, “I mean, they might have had access to the keys, but they didn’t need them to get the cyanide because the lock was broken on Saturday afternoon when I went in. Broken, not just open.”

“Right,” Fitz said, “which combined with a couple other facts to confuse us at the beginning. But we think we know what happened now. The shed—Simmons, why don’t you tell?”

“You figured it out.”

“No, only because you said—”

“—but I wouldn’t have said that if you hadn’t had the idea that—”

“—which I never would have done if you hadn’t—”

Dot groaned. “For the love of God, will either Laurel or Hardy please explain? It doesn’t matter who.”

They turned to her as one and spoke simultaneously:

“It had nothing to do with the murder.”

“Roger broke into the shed.”

“What?” several voices gasped at once, in confusion and surprise and dismay.

Jemma nodded, not having to look at her notes for this bit. “On Friday night, Roger disappeared from the drawing room for a good bit and went out into the gardens—sulking or smoking, we’ve heard both. Actually, it probably _was_ both; the amount of cigarette ends in the shed was disgusting. The cigarettes by themselves don’t point to anyone. As Dot points out, nearly everyone who smokes smokes Whifflets. But Bucket told me he was missing the stash of vodka he keeps there when he went into the shed on Saturday night—unless Mr. Stark drank it—”

“Vodka? No. Not without a good many olives.”

“So,” she said, acknowledging him with her eyebrows, “where did it go? It makes sense that Roger, losing money heavily and watching his girl flirting wildly with a richer, more successful man, would seek refuge in a bottle. But he couldn’t get at the special scotch since Dad was in the study, and the bar was long since locked away and replaced by coffee.” She took a deep breath. “It’s a theory, but we think it’s the right one. Anyway, we—and the police—are convinced that the gardener’s shed was not, ultimately, significant in either death.”

“Apart from being the source of the prussic acid,” Fitz put in quickly.

“Right,” she said, smiling at him from the corner of her eye. “But, as has already been pointed out, the murderer—who has access to the keys, remember—would have gotten it in any case.”

“Right.”

“Right,” Dot echoed bitterly, “so you’re saying anyone could have, at any time, tipped a bit of poison into Sir Robert’s scotch for some reason that you don’t understand. I thought the second murder was supposed to bring more clarity to an investigation, not less.”

She was about to retort, but Fitz’s hand on her wrist forestalled her. “It does,” he said evenly, “but only after we understand the first murder. Which is where we have arrived.”

He paused. From the expressions around the room, Jemma guessed they thought he had done so for effect. She knew, though, that it was for her—he was giving her a chance to steel herself before they went on. But now they came to it, she found that the facts had provided her the necessary courage after all. They held the truth in their hands to dispense at will, and it deserved to be told and acted upon. It was their duty. More than that, it was their right. She put her hand on Fitz’s arm, drawing his attention. _Let me._

_Are you sure?_

Taking a deep breath, she shoved the notebook in her pocket and began. “The facts are these. On Saturday afternoon, the police first suspected Mr. Fitz, as he was assumed to be the only person with a motive to kill Mr. Macpherson. This theory was unreasonable, as Mr. Fitz did not know Mr. Macpherson was in that room and, even if he did, had an alibi. However, it then became clear that Mr. Macpherson was not the intended occupant of the room. At this point, the investigation turned to a threat against Mr. Stark.”

“Which only made sense,” Fitz put in.

“Yes,” she said, “first because only three people were aware that it was Mr. Macpherson in the room to begin with, but also because it seemed far more reasonable that someone would wish to kill Mr. Stark than Mr. Macpherson, who had a less…um…”

“Provacative?”

“Yes, thank you Fitz. Provocative personality. Miss Potts told us as much when we spoke with her.”

Tony Stark put a hand to his heart. “Pepper, I’m wounded.”

“You’ll survive,” she said drily, nodding at Jemma to continue.

She nodded back and did so. “The problem was that, as with Mr. Macpherson, there was no one at the party who had a history with Mr. Stark that would suggest the desire to kill him. So we turned our attention to those who might have had a new reason to wish him dead: Mr. Weatherby, who expressed the opinion that someone would kill Stark one day and he would deserve it, and Roger, who had lost a great deal of money and possibly his fiancée.”

“Roger never could stand harmless flirtation,” Dot mumbled.

She ignored that comment and went on. “They both had opportunity. From experimentation, we concluded that the actual performance of the crime would require between a half and hour and forty-five minutes. The games broke up around eleven and Mr. Weatherby, at least, didn’t come back into the room until nearly midnight. So that much was fine.”

Fitz picked up the thread. “But there was a problem with that, too. If you want to kill someone in the heat of the moment, you don’t stuff a vent so they suffocate. At the very least, you have to have enough time to figure out where you’re going to get the material, and if you’re a guest in the house it’s even harder. The kind of crime it was suggested forethought that those scenarios didn’t allow for.”

“So we had to think about who might have had a motive we couldn’t know about.”

“Which, of course, was difficult, since we didn’t know anything about it.”

“That was Sunday,” she said. “Other things happened on Sunday and Monday to preclude any kind of real detective work, however, we did develop a new theory of the crime. Mr. Weatherby went to Town to present a bill before the House regarding defense—someone who had time to read the paper could explain it better, but it has something to do with cutting the defense budget by transferring the industries out of the country. The very fact that Mr. Stark invited Macpherson here suggests that they were doing business, which would seriously prohibit his plans; therefore it seemed possible that Mr. Weatherby might have tried to kill Mr. Stark to stop that happening.”

“It also explained,” Fitz added, “why there had been no further deaths. Killing my uncle accomplished the same goal.”

“Weatherby?” Stark screwed up his face. “Awful cold-blooded. I wouldn’t have thought he had it in him. It’s more likely he tried to kill me because of his wife. Or that she tried to kill me.”

“Is that why they’re really missing?” Cousin Mary’s voice was almost a whisper. “Have they been charged?”

Jemma looked at Ross, a pillar of strength behind them. “We can’t comment on that,” he answered smoothly. “Not at this time.”

Taking a deep breath, she went on. “That was our theory when we came back on Monday. But then—”

“Roger,” Fitz said. “We’ve already talked about that.”

“But you haven’t told us _anything_.” Dot got to her feet and stomped to the doors. “This whole exercise is ridiculous. You aren’t any closer to a conclusion than you were before. All you have is a lot of vague ideas about things.”

_Do you want it?_

_You can have it._

Not taking his eyes from hers, Fitz said, “That’s true. Because we’ve been looking at the case all wrong.”

Edith leaned back, mouth pursed. “And how, pray, did you come to this conclusion?”

Jemma couldn’t help it; she found herself tucking Fitz behind her protectively. “We realised just what Dot said: we were stuck, with no real evidence to point us any direction. So we went back to the beginning and examined all our assumptions, and we came up with one glaring one.”

Sir Robert cleared his throat. “Which was?”

Fitz moved forward just slightly, enough for her to feel him at her back and breathe in the comfort of his presence. “That no one had a motive or opportunity to kill George Macpherson.”

His words sounded in the room like the ringing of the death-bell. Jemma listened to them echo in the sudden silence and waited for the dread chill that had dogged her since the solution had become clear to reassert itself. After all, this was the final moment; either their plan would work or it wouldn’t, but whichever way it went there was no turning away from it. But the dread didn’t come. Fitz was warm beside her, his knuckles gently brushing at the fingers of the hand hidden behind her skirt. And she remembered: she had already survived one life-changing moment today. Two men were dead who didn’t deserve it. Fitz, who deserved it least of all, had almost been taken from her without ever being granted in the first place. Somehow, she found she didn’t care terribly much about the culprit.

A forced laugh cracked the quiet like an egg. “Darling,” Edith said, directing her words entirely to Jemma, “what are you saying? There _isn’t_ anyone with a motive _and_ an opportunity to kill Mr. Macpherson. How is there even anyone with either?”

“If you’ll let us explain,” she started, and Fitz followed quickly, “our process will be helpful, I think.” She nodded her support and passed the conversational baton with a quick twist of her fingers into the palm of his hand.

“We started,” he said, “with a little fabric from the vent. Simmons did some chemical experimentation on it to determine, primarily, its origin, but in that process several other interesting things came out. One: the specimen was much older than anyone had guessed. Simmons put it at, what, twenty years old?”

“Thereabouts. We’ve sent a sample to the Home Office for confirmation.”

“Second: there were stains on the sample characteristic of a very pure concentration of chlorine, much higher than would be seen under ordinary circumstances. From this we deduced that the fabric likely came from one of the factories involved in either producing or combatting chlorine gas during the war. It’s maybe self-evident, but worth stating, that all of these factories were under the aegis of Macpherson Industries.”

She looked around the room to make sure everyone had understood and accepted that proposition. “Of course we can’t be sure, as it wasn’t as though they marked their lab smocks and scraps, but it’s a reasonable theory. Certain things were clear right away. Since the fabric was so old and had obviously been preserved, some members of the party were unlikely to have anything to do with it. It was hard to imagine where any of us who were children at the time would get it, for example.”

“Mr. Stark was out, too,” Fitz added, “and Miss Potts, because they were in America and Stark Industries didn’t have anything to do with poison gasses. We asked.”

Sir Robert rustled from his brooding bird position. “There’s a weak spot there.”

“Yes,” she said, grateful for his legal mind. “We can’t say for sure that Dot or Mrs. Weatherby or myself couldn’t have found this somewhere and taken advantage of it. But we haven’t drawn any conclusions yet.”

“Right,” Fitz said, “no conclusions, sir. Our questions just provided direction.”

“Good enough.” Sir Robert waved a permissive hand. “Go on.”

She deferred to Fitz, who continued. “Once we had that tentatively settled, we had to figure out how and why a scrap of coverall from Macpherson Industries would have been saved all this time. Where did it even come from—that is, from Macpherson, but how did it leave there and get here? And that’s when Simmons remembered.”

“We remembered at the same time, Fitz.”

“All right,” he allowed with a private grin, “it was a team effort.”

“As was everything.”

Behind them, Ross apparently didn’t appreciate being caught in the middle of their ocular love-making. “What did you remember?” he prompted.

He knew, of course. They had told him at the station. Still, she directed the answer his way, turning her back on the room. “When we were at MI on Monday, I discovered in their old files a tragic event from their research and development of gas masks. Two scientists were accidentally killed while testing an early version of the mask that had not been properly cleared as safe. Their names were Nigel Thomas and John Donaldson. Their effects, and nothing else, were sent to their next-of-kin.”

“Very sad,” Edith said, “but darling, so many dreadful things happened during the War, I’m not sure what this particular event has to do with the tragedies of this weekend?”

“Their effects would include their smocks, which were provided by the workers because of shortages,” Fitz explained.

Jemma turned to her mother and held her eye. Almost she wanted to go over and hold her hand, too, but she knew Edith wouldn’t welcome the gesture. Even when what she was about to say next would cut her mother to the core. “We’re still awaiting confirmation, but we believe that John Donaldson was survived only by his fiancée. And that his fiancée—”

But her mother made the leap the instant before she said it, her mouth going slack in the first and only time Jemma had ever seen her less than poised before company. Startled, the room at large stared at Mrs. Simmons. Only Sir Robert, a second slower than his wife, looked steadily at the unnamed culprit. “Ah,” he said. “Darling Jack.”


	32. The Murderer

Mary Farquhar half-rose, one hand clutching the arm of the sofa. Her face was the sheer panic of a rabbit caught by headlights on a dark night. “No, no, you’re wrong. Jack wasn’t—I don’t know this person you’re talking about.”

Jemma didn’t believe her. Fitz didn’t believe her. Edith, carefully avoiding Mary’s beseeching plea, didn’t believe her either. “I can’t quite remember,” she said slowly, “Jemma had just been born and Sir Robert was in the middle of a rather large trial—that was before we were quite so closely connected, but the name does sound familiar, now you say it.”

Mary shook her head, her limp hair falling around her face. “No, no. My Jack had a bad heart.”

“Yes,” Jemma said, “and so he couldn’t go to war. But he would still have been expected to do war work, and if he had any scientific knowledge at all, he would be useful to MI. About 1915 he died, wasn’t it? Right when they were perfecting the design?”

“I wouldn’t know,” she said, “I don’t know anything about it.”

“Neither did Macpherson when you asked him the first night.”

“What?” But Jemma could see her remembering it, just as Jemma had done as she looked down the microscope at the tiny scrap of fabric. Mary’s voice came floating back: _no, I don’t expect you’d remember_.

_Ah, yes,_ Macpherson had said. _We were developing the filtration systems for our gas masks then_.

Sinking back down onto the sofa, Mary crossed her arms over her stomach and held herself together tightly. “You can’t know that. You said you have no proof.”

Somehow, Fitz managed to keep his voice gentle. He was a better person than she was, Jemma decided; she was angry enough to claw Mary’s eyes out, no, to turn her over to the police without so much as a blink. “We haven’t yet, but it won’t be difficult to find. We already had someone tracking down John Donaldson’s family before we suspected any of this.”

“But that still isn’t enough,” Stark piped up from his place, now standing and leaning back against the door. “That’s still only motive. Motive isn’t everything. You said it yourself.”

A fire returned to Cousin Mary’s eyes. “Yes. Explain that. I went to bed before they decided they were going to switch rooms; I thought it was Mr. Stark in the room. I suppose I have no reason to kill him?”

Fitz shook his head almost reluctantly. “That was the sticking point, honestly. The police were on to this long before we were. They were directing it in the wrong place, but they had the right idea.”

“What do you mean, my boy?” Sir Robert leaned forward, his hands tenting under his chin. He was transforming into High Court Judge before their eyes; if they could convince him, Jemma knew, it was done. She had just enough time to note ‘my boy’ before Fitz responded.

“They suggested that it was possible for someone to have known about the exchange who wasn’t in the room at the time. They meant me, but it was equally possible for someone else.”

“How?” Edith asked, “this room is soundproof. I would have seen someone on the terrace and Sir Robert was in the study when it was decided—how could anyone have known?”

“If she engineered it.”

A burst of laughter escaped from Cousin Mary. Jemma thought it was meant to sound incredulous. It came out slightly hysterical.

“How,” Sir Robert pressed.

“Mm.” Fitz paused and placed a hand on the back of his neck. “Let me ask a question, sir?”

“Whatever you need, man. You’ve got us on tenterhooks.”

“Mr. Stark?”

Tony Stark raised both eyebrows and pointed to himself. “Me?”

“Yes.”

“Ask away. I’m dying of curiosity.”

“Well,” Fitz said, “it’s not a proper question to begin. You’re very bad at directions, aren’t you, Mr. Stark?”

“Following them or—”

“Sorry, I mean, compass points. North and west and so on. You couldn’t tell us which direction London is from here, could you?”

“That way, isn’t it?”

Fitz allowed the room enough time to realise that Stark was pointing the exact opposite direction from London before continuing. “When we drove up on Friday night, the sun was directly overhead, and it didn’t begin to set until we were all at dinner. And the windows in the dining room face south, so we couldn’t actually see the sun going down. Mr. Stark, how did you know that the sun would come up through Peacock’s windows?”

“Oh, I—” He stopped, tilting his head and looking at the ceiling. “Huh. I’m not sure. Someone must have told me. Pep, did you?”

Miss Potts shook her head. “I didn’t speak to you all night, Tony. You came down so late and I went to bed after dinner.”

He turned to Dot. “Cards?”

“No,” she said curtly, thumping an unlit cigarette into her palm.

“Drinks?”

Both Fitz and Sir Robert shook their heads.

“Must have been at dinner, then.” He snapped and pointed at Mary. “Right, that’s right. We were talking about my windows in my new house, the automatic curtains and the wall of windows overlooking the ocean, and you told me that the sun was something awful in Peacock.”

“What does that prove?” she demanded incredulously. “Anyone might have said that. I couldn’t know that you would demand to switch.”

Sliding upwards on the wall, Stark didn’t retract his accusing finger. “You did, though. I can’t believe I forgot this. Pepper, remind me not to mix grape and grain again—who knows what I’m losing?”

“Tony,” Miss Potts said warningly.

“You said,” Stark went on as if he hadn’t interrupted himself, “it would be much better to exchange rooms and that I ought to ask Mrs. Simmons later. I didn’t think of it at the time, but as the night wore on—”

Mary turned to Edith. “Cousin, surely you can see how ridiculous this is. Even if what Mr. Stark is remembering is true—which I think we may safely doubt—your first response would be to put the Weatherbys in Peacock and transfer Mr. Stark to Hawk, wouldn’t it? I couldn’t know you would have switched those two rooms.”

Edith’s eyes were burning and painful to look at. “Mary, we spoke when I rang you on Thursday about how Mr. Weatherby had specifically requested Hawk. I wouldn’t have even thought of moving him, particularly not with the mood he was in that night.”

Mary pressed her lips into a white, grim line. Fitz, unable to stop himself from watching her crumble, thought she looked rather like she was going to be sick. “Yes, the phone,” he said, hoping to draw the attention back to himself and Simmons, “that was another piece. When listing the people who knew my uncle and I were coming, we never remembered Miss Farquhar. But she must have known, because she was asked at the last moment to make the party even.  She’s been here before, many times, so she had the potential to know about the boiler. With the fabric of Jack Donaldson’s lab smock already to hand, it couldn’t have been that difficult to put the plan together. Her fiancé died gasping for air due to Macpherson’s negligence. Why shouldn’t the man responsible be killed the same way?”

“It’s vicious lies,” Mary said, tears now streaming down her face. “You’ve got nothing, just guesses that don’t even cover all the facts.”

“True enough,” Sir Robert said. “What about Roger? Or do you assume that someone else killed him?”

Jemma shook her head. “No, we had that right to begin with. She killed him to keep him from disclosing the information that would point to her unequivocally.”

Sir Robert stood, clasping his hands behind him in an unconscious mirror of Ross’s pose. “When did he get this information, Gem? You believe that the actual crime was committed while we were playing cards, correct? But you’ve already theorised convincingly that he was in the gardener’s shed the time he was absent from the drawing room.”

“The _second_ time,” Fitz said eagerly. “Remember, he left the room even before the games started and went upstairs to get his poker chips.”

“But Cousin Mary was still downstairs,” Edith said, heartbreaking in her hopefulness.

Jemma answered, gaze gentle. For the first time, Fitz could see how much she cared for her mother. “Yes, Mother, but that only makes it more likely. Roger accidentally went into Cousin Mary’s room to get the chips instead of his own—he told me himself that he was poking around in drawers and saw the photograph of Jack. Perhaps he saw the coverall but didn’t realise it; perhaps it was already cut into strips and he found those instead; perhaps it was only the threat of what he might have found in her room and seen on the stairs that made her nervous.”

“Seen on the stairs?” More than one voice echoed, including Ross’s. Fitz and Jemma shot each other a regretful glance. Oh well, they were bound to have forgotten at least one thing. He shrugged and moved forward. “Around three o’clock on Saturday morning, Roger was attempting to sneak downstairs for some of the special scotch when he heard someone fumbling with keys on the landing.”

Edith looked up sharply, eyebrows drawn. “What?”

“The keys don’t rattle,” Sir Robert said. “Not the room keys, at least; there’s only one. What kind of noise could it make?”

“Exactly.” Jemma nodded. “It was the master keys, Dad. I think we’re going to need to find a new hiding place for them.”

“But how—?”

“Oh, Robert.” Edith’s voice was an unearthly groan, her face buried in her hands. “I showed her where they were ages ago. When we went to the Rivera and she stayed at the house because her flat—”

Sir Robert closed his eyes and breathed out slowly through his nose. “Edith.”

Beside him, Fitz felt Jemma lean forward and then check herself, balling her fists and holding them tightly to her sides. “She used the keys to get into Peacock and lock it up again, then tried to put them back when she thought no one would be up. But Roger was, so she couldn’t find time to put them away until that night, when I saw her in the study. I thought she was just getting a drink, but she had obviously been by the desk because she knew the papers were on it. I was so sure the keys were a family secret—but so was the scotch, and she knew them both.”

“Edith,” Sir Robert said again, sitting heavily beside her on the sofa and matching her posture. There was no reproach in his voice, only unutterable sorrow. If Mary Farquhar hadn’t had access to the keys, Fitz thought, what might have happened this weekend? Perhaps nothing? But she did and she had, and here they were. Unable to hold herself back any longer, Jemma left his side in a rustle of skirts and went to sit on the coffee table in front of her parents, taking one hand of each. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I wish it was different.”

There seemed to be nothing more to say, so Fitz didn’t speak. That was the end of their case against Mary Farquhar and it appeared that nothing had happened—at least, he didn’t know what Ross was expecting, so he didn’t know if it had been a success. He turned to the inspector, eyebrows raised inquisitively. Was there something else he needed to do? Did the party just disband now? But Ross only gave him a slow nod that clearly said _wait_. Wait for what? he wondered. Mary was just sitting there like a stone, not moving, not blinking, not giving any sign that they were right. If they were waiting for a confession, they might be here until Judgment Day.

He was so concentrated on her that he didn’t see Dot flying from the French doors like a Fury until she was right in front of Mary. Yanking her to her feet, Dot slapped the older woman across the face with a resounding smack. The room cried out with one voice, Stark and Fitz springing to separate the two by instinct. Dot kept her tight grip on Mary’s arm even as Stark tried to pull her away. “How dare you, you bitch?” she shouted. “He wouldn’t be a threat to you even if he saw you ruddy stuffing the vent! Kill people who deserve it, but Roger never harmed anyone!”

Mary wrenched her arm away. Fitz, holding onto her other one, was suddenly surprised at her strength. He hadn’t been this close to her all weekend and hadn’t realised that, for all she looked so frail, she was lithe and stringy and taller even than he was. Standing with her head thrown back and furious tears still running down her face, she was a force of nature. “Don’t you even try to pretend you cared for Roger,” she said, hard as granite. “You quarreled with him and flirted with everyone in sight in front of his face; you’d drop him in an instant if something better came along—well, aren’t you lucky that you haven’t a heart to be broken when he dies. You’ll just find a new man. And you can, because there are men for the taking in heaps on the pavement and you don’t give a damn about any of them. And you—” She rounded on Jemma, who had stood at the sound of the blow and was now watching with wide, horror-stricken eyes. “You can stand there high-and-mighty to pass judgment on me only because you didn’t lose him. Here he is”—she shook the arm that Fitz was holding—“here he is, not burned to bits like he deserves, like they all deserve, anyone who uses up men like bits of machines. If he had died trapped in that godforsaken room you would understand. You broke down the Icehouse door to save him, didn’t you? What wouldn’t you do to the person who killed him? You would know. You would do anything to the murderer, if he was dead.”

Jemma regarded her evenly, jaw set and eyes grave. It gave Fitz a chill up his spine. For an instant, he did not see the woman he had kissed this morning. A grim avenger who took life and death in her own hands stood in Jemma’s place. “I don’t know,” she said, each word chipped from ice. “But I know what I’m going to do to the person who tried to kill him.”

Ross cleared his throat, gracefully sliding from the fireplace to take Mary’s other arm. “Now, Miss Farquhar, why would Miss Simmons need to break down the door? I believe that she said that the door was open when she got there?”

Fitz hoped he never again saw anything like Mary Farquhar’s face collapsing in on itself as she realised what she had done. She was a murderer, he knew—had killed two people and tried to kill him, could have hurt Jemma or anyone else who got in her way—but he couldn’t rid himself of the overwhelming pity now engulfing him. It could have been Mam, he thought, or any of the millions of women left widows and not-quite-widows after the war. It could be him someday, he thought with a long look at Jemma. From the way she met his eyes across the room, shaking slightly, he knew that it could very easily be her.

A knock at the door made everybody jump. The constable who had driven them up stuck his head in sheepishly. “Inspector? That was just Sir James Lubbock from the Home Office. He says that he bears out Miss Simmons’s findings, absolutely. And we got a call earlier when you were in the middle of it—someone from Mr. Fitz’s office says that he’s found the next-of-kin and can provide details whenever required. Did you need to speak with him?”

“No,” Ross said, “no, I believe we have everything we need for the moment.”

 

* * *

 

 Fitz didn’t really know what he expected to happen after they solved the crime. Detective stories always end there, with the villain going off in handcuffs and sneering out the window of the police car. Mary Farquhar didn’t sneer. She more snuffled, somehow managing to remain dignified even in the constraints. He stood next to Simmons and watched the police drive away, feeling rather hollow. “Ironic, isn’t it? All this time we thought it was my uncle who died on accident.”

“And it was really Jack Donaldson who was murdered by mistake?”

He nodded, unspeakably grateful for her understanding without explanation. “What happens now?”

She reached out, took his arm, and rested her head on his shoulder despite the fact that they were standing in the driveway in front of God and everyone. “Lord, everything miserable. We’ll have to give more statements before they’ll let us leave, then we’ll have to come back for the inquest, then there’s Assizes and the actual trial. And, then, I suppose—” She broke off, but he knew what she was thinking.

“We can’t do anything about that,” he said, trying to convince himself. “We only did what we had to.”

Sighing, she nodded. “I know, Fitz. I don’t even feel very badly about it now. Only it’s a rotten thing to have in one’s family. And it scares me, rather. When she was saying those things—”

“I know.”

“I don’t know what—”

“You wouldn’t do that.”

She twisted up to meet his eyes. “How do you know?”

“Because,” he said, “I don’t think Jack Donaldson would have wanted this to happen.”

They watched the line of police cars trail down the lane and out the gate.

“Anyway,” he added, “Assuming I don’t sell MI to Stark, we’re going to crack down on safety measures so this kind of thing won’t come up again. I have no plans to be murdered at all.”

“No one plans to get murdered, Fitz.”

“I’m fairly confident we’ve had more than our fair share. Ask Mr. Stark how many times he’s been almost killed, subtract ninety percent of them because I am a much nicer person, and that’s how much you have to worry.”

“None,” came Stark’s voice from behind them. Fitz missed the weight of Jemma’s head when she turned to look over his shoulder.

“None at all?” she repeated, skeptical.

“Well,” he relented, “if you don’t count that time in Afghanistan, which I don’t. That was another thing entirely. Nothing to do with Stark Industries. And this, which—it was a pretty close thing, wasn’t it? What if I hadn’t remembered about the windows? I would have gone up to bed like a good little boy and been quietly gassed.”

They shook their heads in unison. “No,” Fitz said, “because you sleep with the window open. You would have had a rotten headache, maybe been a little achy, but you wouldn’t have died.”

“Did you tell her that?” Jemma asked. They had wondered about it when they were putting together their theory.

Stark scratched at his beard. “I can’t remember. Probably. But then again, she killed that young pup without knowing he knew anything for sure. Maybe she wouldn’t have been too particular about me.”

They fell silent, considering. It lasted a grand total of two seconds before Stark spoke again. “Well, I’m taking Pepper and going back into town—the less of us your mother has to deal with the better, I think this broke her. Did you two want a ride to the police station?”

Fitz didn’t have to be looking at Jemma to know what she would say, and he overlapped his answer with hers. “We’re fine.”

“We’ll stay here.”

Stark looked between them, eyebrows raised. “They aren’t and they don’t,” he said. “I wish Pepper had taken that bet.”

As Stark sauntered towards the garages, Jemma turned to him, eyebrows quirked. He shook his head. “Better not to ask.”

“Oh!” Stark stopped ten feet away and pointed at them. “I forgot to tell you—I’ve got it. ‘Miss Simmons and Mr. Fitz’ is so unwieldy, don’t you think? I’m tired just thinking about it. Until you work it out so you don’t need all those names, if you catch my meaning, I think you should make everybody call you FitzSimmons.” He shrugged and resumed his journey, calling back over his shoulder. “Just a thought.”

“FitzSimmons,” he repeated, liking the feel of it on his tongue.

“FitzSimmons,” she echoed, and frowned. “Why not Simmons-Fitz?”

“Not as easy to say.”

“I suppose you’re right.” She returned her head to the place where, he rather felt, it belonged. “Though don’t go thinking that is in any way indicative of the power balance in our relationship. We’re equals here, always. Aren’t we?”

Heedless of who might be looking through the windows, he pressed a kiss to her hair. “Yes, darling.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phewf! So that wraps up the mystery. The final chapter, to wrap up everything else, will be out on Monday!


	33. Lola

“No, Fitz, don’t be silly. There’s no reason for you to come all the way up to Oxford only to go all the way back. I’ll just motor down in Rosalind.”

“But I want to pick you up,” he said stubbornly. “That’s what’s proper. If we just meet at the club it could be an accident or two friends, and I don’t want that.”

Jemma glanced shyly at Padgett, twisting the cord around her finger. “It’s not, Fitz. You know, and I know, it’s not that.”

“So let me come get you. I’ll just tell Mack and Trip we have to practice in the morning.”

“What?” she said incredulously. “You’d shirk your preparation for a silly social custom? That’s ridiculous. They would be furious with you.”

“You don’t even know them, how can you say that?”

“Besides, if I’m supposed to love jazz music after tomorrow night, it had better be the best jazz there is. No. I won’t let you. Pepper has been begging me to come have tea with her; I’ll come down in the afternoon and get ready in a hotel, and I will meet you at Lola at nine o’clock sharp. All right?”

He sighed heavily. “Yes, darling.”

“Fitz, I told you—”

Who had ever said it was impossible to hear facial expressions? His smug smirk positively dripped across the line. “Don’t be so bossy and I won’t have to. But all right. If you’re coming up early, I really can’t get away—board meetings until they come out my ears. Nine o’clock?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll have them look out for you at the door. Don’t you dare be late!”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Conversation at its end, they should have rung off. Jemma had already used far more of her allowance than was reasonable on trunk calls; she was going to have to forego a good portion of the summer wardrobe she had planned if they kept this up. But, as always, letting him go one second before she absolutely had to wasn’t even a consideration. Just because she had nothing particular to say didn’t mean they weren’t still communicating.

Finally, the operator’s voice came over the line. “Would you like another three minutes?”

“No,” Fitz said, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Simmons.”

“Til then, Fitz.”

She handed the receiver back to Padgett and floated out of the gatehouse. Tomorrow, finally, was the day. Since they had closed the investigation three weeks ago she had seen Fitz only a handful of times at inquests and other legal proceedings, none of which counted as properly seeing him. It wasn’t that they hadn’t tried to meet elsewhere; between his new responsibilities and her just-completed Schools, they simply kept having things come up. Twice they had made plans only to have them fall through at the last minute. Their communication had been limited to what they could get across with their eyes—a good deal, happily—and what they were brave enough to say over the phone—not anywhere near as much. But now, at last, they were going to be in the same place at the same time with nothing to do except be with each other, and Jemma was not entirely certain how she was going to keep herself from going to bits with anticipation.

Somehow she managed to live, though she did collect a summons on the road up to Town. “Oh well,” she explained to Pepper over tea in the hotel restaurant, “it isn’t as though I’m not already spending most of my time in and out of courts. If I had known this is what investigating required of you, I’m not sure I would have begun.”

Pepper’s secret smile was clearly visible behind her cup. “Yes, you would.”

“Yes,” she admitted, thinking of what she had gained from it. “I would.”

Placing the cup back into its saucer and smearing a bite of scone with clotted cream, Pepper managed to wink without actually doing so. “Still, I imagine it’s rather tiresome. And difficult. Are you bearing it all right?”

Jemma looked out into the tea room. They said that the British justice system was the most efficient in the world, but she was beginning to doubt it. It seemed that she was having to go before a judge or a court nearly every day, explaining what had happened despite the fact that the papers had repeated her testimony from Roger’s inquest verbatim and the girls on her staircase had a better idea of the scope and sequence of the crime than she did. Cousin Mary’s reproachful, furious eyes never left her, even when she slept. It came in waves, really: some days, some hours, she was sorry and guilty for her role in the event, others she thought only of the victims and felt no sympathy at all. She had cried into her pillow more than once. “I’m all right,” she said finally. “It is difficult, of course, but as it’s the right thing I don’t mind so much. In any event, it isn’t as though I haven’t other things happening to distract me.”

“Have you been able to recreate your research?”

“Some.” Jemma was pleased she thought to ask. “I had some left, thankfully; some I remember; some I will have to wait until I can replicate it in a lab, but as soon as things settle down again I’m confident I will be able to do so.”

“I hope you will,” Pepper said. “If there’s another war, such a thing would be extremely useful. And lucrative, of course. Though I imagine you don’t care a good deal about that.”

“No, of course not. I’ve been thinking, actually, that if it works I’d like to give it to someone, rather than sell it. Stark Industries may have it, if you do that kind of thing.”

“Not especially. We’re more technology driven. I think you’ll find yourself in better hands with Macpherson.”

“If Fitz doesn’t sell,” she said.

Pepper raised an eyebrow. “Do you think he’s going to?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. We haven’t been able to talk about it. I hope he doesn’t. He’s doing marvelously, and because he actually understands the science side of it he can do so much good. He’s already having them work on suits that protect against dangerous substances, _including_ gasses and waves. Isn’t that incredible?”

“Yes.” Wiping her mouth, Pepper added, “I had heard about that, actually. He asked Tony what procedures we keep in our labs because he was working on this project…funny thing was, he said that it was your idea?”

“Oh, well.” She became very interested in spreading jam on her crumpet. “Who can say whose idea it was? I can’t tell anymore.”

Much to her relief, Pepper merely made an “mmhmm” noise and changed the subject entirely for the rest of their excellent tea. When they got up to leave, Jemma was surprised to be pulled into a firm embrace. “Good luck, Jemma.”

Americans, Jemma thought, doing her best not to wriggle. “Good luck, why? I’ll see you at Assizes, surely?”

Holding her out at arms’ length, Pepper shook her head. “The prosecution has decided my testimony is unnecessary, apparently, so I’m going home. They’re sending another minder for Tony to make sure he doesn’t blab where he shouldn’t.”

“Going home?” Jemma echoed. “But if Mr. Stark is here, what will you do there?”

“Someone has to run the company,” Pepper said with a twinkle. “What, did you think Tony keeps it solvent? My dear Jemma, if we relied on him we would have gone bankrupt twenty years ago.”

Jemma found she wasn’t surprised at all. “So you’re the mysterious board member?”

“Unofficially.” Pepper grinned. “The other members couldn’t handle me being a woman, but Tony trusts me more than anyone and takes my advice more often than not. A position I think you will be more than familiar with in the future?”

With her cheeks all pink, Jemma couldn’t pretend she didn’t know what Pepper meant. “Oh, I don’t…that is, it all depends…”

Pulling her back into the hug, Pepper laughed. “Good luck again, then.”

But Jemma, having had ample time to plan her attack, didn’t intend to leave it to luck. After bidding farewell to Pepper, she went upstairs and lay down for an hour—not that the butterflies in her stomach allowed her to actually sleep, but she rose feeling rested enough to match night-owl Fitz minute for minute. Then she took a long and luxurious bath sprinkled with lavish amounts of lavender bath salts for relaxation. Wrapping herself in a satin dressing gown, she carefully applied the smallest hints of make-up (sans lip-stain, because she wasn’t a floozy, and blush, because her cheeks were pink enough) and added a jeweled headband that always received compliments to her coiffure. Finally, she put on her nicest undergarments with a treasured pair of 10-shilling silk stockings and slid into the dancing frock especially purchased for tonight. The blue of the dress exactly matched his eyes at their happiest, and she intended to keep them identical all night long. Surveying herself in the mirror, she smoothed down the front of the dress and nodded judiciously. Yes, she would do. In fact she looked rather beautiful, though she said it herself. Fitz had seen her in her worn old sweater and had kissed her with smut all over her face, so she was confident he would think she looked nice no matter what, but if one _could_ engender the slack-jawed, heated-eyes expression, wouldn’t one? Indeed.

She had timed her arrival at Lola to the minute, but she hadn’t counted on a cabbie who insisted he knew a better way to get there. As if she hadn’t gone over the route a million times while she waited. His detour landed her on the pavement at 8:58. The crowds thronging to get in didn’t want to let her pass just because her name was on the list, so she impatiently waited her turn and was rewarded with an unhealthy amount of pleasure at their faces when the maître left the desk to escort her to a table on the very edge of the dance floor. Five past nine: she was late.

The music was already swinging, the bright tones of a trumpet cutting through the babble of the patrons, and she found herself swaying along to the shish of the drums as she tried to see over the dancers to the stage. It struck her that she didn’t actually know _what_ Fitz played; somehow, it had never come up. The golden trumpet? The steady, supportive drums? The piano, innovative and surprising? Any of them could be him, because he was them all. Well, she would never know if the people wouldn’t stop moving. Without thinking, she kicked back her chair and stood on the seat. He was there somewhere and she had been waiting all day, her whole life, and she couldn’t take it anymore.

First she saw the lights glinting off the trumpet, which was being blown by a black man who somehow managed to be exceedingly handsome despite the way his cheeks were puffed out. Another black man, also handsome and absolutely enormous, played the drums. And there he was bent over the piano, fingers flying and head moving to the beat, familiar intense concentration on his face. Her heart stuttered in her chest a little. “Fitz!” she called and was instantly scarlet; of course he couldn’t hear her and shouldn’t look up anyway. She got down hastily. She had seen him now; she would just wait until the song was over and then go up. In the meantime, she listened hard to the piano piece, trying to unlock it with her mind. It still sounded a little wrong to her, but what did she know? She trusted that Fitz was right and there was a logic she didn’t understand.

The music stopped in what sounded like the middle of a bar, the blunt end covered by applause. “Thank you,” the trumpeter said in chocolaty American. “To get you started this evening, that was a little piece of our own composition called ‘Come On, Girl’. We’ll just take a short break and be back in ten minutes. Don’t get too comfortable, ‘cause we’ve got a great set for you on this very special night.”

She was moving before he finished, shoving the opposite direction through the crowd now flowing to the bar. Ten minutes was all she had to begin; she had better make the best of it. Drinks could wait. In truth, she felt like she was already tipsy, drunk on the mere thought of him.

“Simmons!”

She turned quickly and almost fell into him, her hands landing on the lapels of his jacket as he clutched her elbows. “You’re wearing a tuxedo!” she blurted, staring at the silky material under her hands. Goodness, if she had wanted to kiss him silly in his ancient cardigan, she was toast now.

Steadying her, he let go and stepped back, reaching up to clasp the back of his neck embarrassedly. “Yeah, it was Trip’s idea. He always wanted to wear them, but since I can afford it now he essentially demanded it. Apparently it’s supposed to attract the ladies. Is it, um, is it working?”

She bit her lip, taking him in from top to toe. Oh, yes, it was working, but she couldn’t resist having a little fun. Shrugging, she said, “Honestly, I don’t see that much difference from your normal clothes.”

“None at all?” he echoed, face falling.

She stepped into his space and lowered her voice invitingly, looking up through her eyelashes. “Oh, no. I thought you were the most attractive man I know before and I continue to think so now.”

His eyes lit up. “Well. Um. I have to look at least a little good, because you are—you look—you shouldn’t have stood on the chair like that, Jemma. It could have been dangerous.”

“Yeah,” a voice came from behind her, “dangerous to the song. He saw you and suddenly threw in about four accidentals we had to try to work around.”

A deep rumble added, “He’s bad enough on his own. You being around only makes him worse.”

As the other two band members brushed around her to flank him, Fitz looked pained. “You weren’t supposed to mention that,” he said.

The trumpeter threw his arm around Fitz’s shoulders. “Man, everyone could hear it! There’s dissonance and then there’s _dissonance_ , if you know what I’m saying?”

“I didn’t notice,” she offered.

“Thank you,” Fitz said. “Miss Simmons, this is Trip. And this”—he indicated the drummer—“is Mack.”

Mack’s hand swallowed hers when they shook. “Yeah, but, no offence, Miss Simmons, this is your first time at one of these little shindigs. The regulars noticed.”

“Well,” Fitz sputtered, “they can just forget they heard anything. We’ll make up for it later. Do you like your table? It’s the best place to hear.”

“It’s very nice.” She gave him a look out of the corner of her eye. “I’d rather see, though.”

Trip bit back a smile. Mack nodded, thankfully inscrutable. “If you want to see, you’ll have to stand at the bar. It’s elevated.’ Pushing back the cuff of his white shirt, he glanced at his watch quickly. “Five minutes, Fitz.”

“I’ll be there.”

They moved away into the crowd, leaving Fitz to smile apologetically. “Where were we?”

“You were telling me how I look.” She shook her head. “But I think I know, now, unless you were just concerned for my safety and that’s why you made that mistake.”

“It wasn’t a mistake!” he protested, “it was improvisation. But, if it comes to it—” He stepped forward and leaned in to whisper, his breath against her cheek sending shivers down her spine. “I’ve never seen anything as beautiful as you tonight, Jemma. Except you when I wasn’t dead.” Then he dropped a kiss in front of her ear and rested his forehead against her temple just long enough for her heart to skip a beat. “Is it time to dance yet?”

She sought his hand and squeezed it, brushing her thumb across his knuckles. “I think your band-mates might object. And I was promised a great set. Why is tonight a very special night?”

“Because you’re here,” he said simply, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

He went with her to the bar, holding tightly to her hand as they snaked through the crowd, and directed the bartender to keep her plied with any beverage she chose. “Fitz, no,” she protested, “I can pay for my own drinks.”

“You wouldn’t let me pick you up, Simmons; allow me some dignity at least.”

“Oh, all right.” She got the bartender’s attention with a smirk. “I’ll have water, please.”

“Jemma!”

Grabbing him by the lapel, she pulled him in to keep the people pressing them together on either side from hearing. “Fitz, listen, I don’t need drinks.” _I’ve got everything I want already_.

_So do I_ , he said.

“Jemma? Mr. Fitz? Is that you?”

They started at the voice, both because they hadn’t expected to hear it and because it was hardly recognizable as its owner’s. Dot shoved her way up to the counter beside Jemma, demanding a g-and-t with rather more g than t, and turned to them.  “Fancy seeing you here. I didn’t peg you two for this type. Come here often?”

“Yes,” Fitz said, “rather, and if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to it.” The glance he gave her over his shoulder spoke eloquently of frustration and impatience.

_Soon_ , she tried to tell him, and turned back to Dot when he disappeared. “I’m surprised to see you here, honestly. I didn’t think you were going out much?”

Leaning with her elbows on the counter, Dot faced out at the crowd and waved a casual hand. “Oh, well. You know how it is in this city—life bustles on all the time. Our little murders are overcome by a horse-racing scandal and a disappeared typist, and one must keep up with the times.” She twirled her glass, making the ice clink. “I’ve come with Pongo Twistelton. He’s rather a bore but very generous; it doesn’t do to cut someone like that.”

“I suppose not,” Jemma murmured, more interested in the amount of cosmetics Dot had caked on her face than what she was saying. She wasn’t looking well at all.  

On stage, Trip smiled into the microphone. “And we’re back with ‘It Don’t Mean a Thing’.”

Ah, yes, it was much better from here. Not only could she hear nearly as well, she could watch him play and catch his eye when he glanced up between runs to see if she had caught the difficult thing he had just done. Someday she would actually have to learn this, but for now she was content to be astounded by him yet again. She utterly forgot Dot was there until she spoke.

“You know,” Dot said, fumbling for a cigarette, “it’s funny, how we had exchanged positions at the end of the house party.”

“What?”

She took a long pull, hands shaking. “Only on Friday I was the girl everyone envied and you were the eccentric bluestocking. Now you’re having tea with Pepper Potts and you’ve got a millionaire passionately in love with you—a millionaire who just happens to own the company that’s the only way you’ll be allowed to do what you’ve always wanted. It’s funny, is all.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say—” she began, but Dot cut her off.

“Don’t be stupid, Jemma. If he’s not now he will be soon. My advice is to grab it with both hands. If there’s anything we learned, it’s that things like this can disappear in a blink.”

She dropped her eyes to her water, watching the condensation drip down the side. “Why are you telling me this?”

“We’ve never got on,” Dot said, “but I do hope you’re happy, Jemma. One of us might as well be. Can I have another g-and-t?”

Getting the bartender’s attention, Jemma indicated another round was in order. So that was it, she thought, understanding the thick cream under Dot’s eyes. “What will you do?” she asked, unable to verbalise the sympathy she felt.

Dot laughed, a quick, bitter bark, and threw back her drink in one gulp. “Me? You heard what she said—I’ll find another man and use him up. Pongo will do to begin. And when he’s dry, I’ll go out to the street and pick up another. That’s how I do things, you know.”

Screwing up every ounce of courage, Jemma touched Dot’s arm gently. “You don’t have to.”

“Oh, but I do.” Dot pushed herself up angrily and began to stalk away, but stopped before she had got more than three steps. When she turned back to Jemma, all the cosmetics in the world couldn’t hide how old she looked. “All the same, damned if I wasn’t awfully fond of Roger.”

When Fitz looked up the next time, Jemma was staring at the ground and slowly twirling her glass, deep in thought. He hoped it was because she was listening and not because Dot had said something dreadful, but he couldn’t take the time to think about it much now. That is, he was thinking about her feelings nearly constantly, but the hows and whys were next to impossible while playing the complicated jazz that he, Mack, and Trip were gaining a reputation for. And tonight there was even more pressure. He knew she wouldn’t be able to tell if they played well or badly, but he wanted more than anything to offer her the best that he had. That was all he wanted forever, really. She deserved it, deserved the best of everything he could give.

The set went at once quick as a wink and slow as treacle, each song seeming to take a year to play but the set suddenly over before he realised. “All right,” Trip said finally, “now our trio will become a duo as our pianist has a previous engagement. If you’ve liked his playing tonight, do him a favour and don’t tell him—believe me, he won’t thank you for the interruption. Fitz, everybody!”

There was a roar of applause as he jogged down the stairs, but he hardly heard it. Because she was at the bottom, holding out both hands for him with a shining face, and he had reached the end of the journey. “It was marvelous,” she said, “at least, I think it was—your technique was incredible, at least, I’ve seen heaps of pianists and I’ve never seen one move as quickly as you did. Except the one fellow who only had his left hand.”

He tried to respond, he really did, but it came out as a laugh instead. “So I’m not quite as good as a one-handed pianist?”

“Ugh, Fitz! That’s not—”

“I know,” he said, finally reaching her and trying his best not to take her in his arms right then and there. “Have I convinced you?”

“I like jazz when _you_ play it,” she said. “Is it my turn—your turn now?”

He had only been waiting all night. She led him out to the floor and turned to face him, dazzling under the lights. “All right, let’s start with something easy—step right, step left, and rock back. Right, left, rock, right, left rock. Understand?”

“Right, left, rock,” he repeated obediently, and promptly nearly stepped on her.

“No, Fitz, right, left, _then_ rock. Watch.”

After practicing carefully for three or four songs, he got the basic step with enough confidence to do it in place. Moving around the floor, however, proved to be a danger to the public, and twirling her—which he tried a couple times to watch that skirt fly out like a flower—was a disaster on the level of the Great Fire of 1666. He could almost feel Trip laughing at him from the stage. He knew he wasn’t imagining the extra oomph Mack was putting on the beat. “I’m sorry,” he said after a particularly bad fumble had sent her flying into a nearby couple. “I did tell you I was bad.”

Laughing, she replaced his hand at her back. “I didn’t promise to make you good; I said I would make you like it. Am I succeeding?”

He looked down into her face—eyes like embers, smile bright enough to light the whole of southern England—and smelled the lavender wafting off her and felt the steady weight of her arm around him, and wished they weren’t in the smack middle of the crowd. She was almost begging to be kissed. “If I have the right partner.”

“See?” She started them off again: right, left, rock. “I had to find something you weren’t good at eventually. It’s impossible for you to be brilliant at everything.”

“What am I brilliant at?”

“Oh, off the top of my head: science. Investigation. Tennis. Jazz. Looking at a girl like she’s the last deposit of the rarest element in the world.”

“Only if she is.”

She pressed her lips together and looked over his shoulder, eyes lighting joyfully. He let her go to turn and see what she was looking at, but she caught his hand and pulled him back. “Fitz, come with me? I don’t want to dance anymore. For now, at least.”

“Where are we going?” he asked, following her lead off the floor as obediently as he had on it.

Looking back over her shoulder as she weaved gracefully through the cloud, she said, “There’s something else you’re rather good at—brilliant, I’d wager, but I need more data.”

He racked his brain to think what talent he might have that she could gather data for at eleven o’clock on a Friday night and came up short. Until, that is, she made her way to the back of the club and pushed at the large metal door into the alley, at which point his brain stopped working entirely. Under the moonlight, the blue of her dress turned silver. Her eyes, though, were dark with sudden worry as she dropped his hand to fold hers together. “I only thought,” she said, “I’d like—um, because we—it was just sitting, before, and that was lovely, it really was, but this—I know it isn’t the optimal environment—”

As though any place she was could be less than optimal. “You want me to kiss you?” he asked, just to be sure.

“Very much. If you don’t mind.”

“I think,” he said, “I could be talked into it.”

In response, she danced her hand over his shoulder and up his neck to rest in his hair, drawing his head down. “There’s much better ways than talking,” she murmured, and proceeded to prove it to him most expertly.

He accepted her lips nearly mindlessly for a minute—not thoughtlessly, because he would never take them for granted as long as he lived, but so overwhelmed with the sheer pleasure of having her fill all his senses that doing anything but basking in it was impossible. Then he realised that was doing nothing to prove to her that he was brilliant at kissing, and as that was arguably the most important thing (unless it was science) he had better get on it. Without stopping, he took her firmly by the elbows and walked her backwards towards the wall, letting go just in time to cradle her head so it didn’t bump. “Will I muss your hair?” he whispered, a little surprised at the depth of his own voice.

She dropped tiny kisses on the very edge of his cheek, the only place she could reach. “Who will notice?”

“Fair point.” No longer caring, he sunk his fingers in her hair, wrapping his palms around her neck so he could adjust and direct as needed. “Your dress?”

“I bought it for you.” She shivered as he dared to press an open-mouthed kiss to the corner of her jawline and throat. “Don’t _ruin_ it, of course, but it can get a little dirty without much harm. Ohh, Fitz!”

Inordinately pleased with himself, he tried to repeat the action, only to have her grab both sides of his face and pull him back to her lips. “Do it here,” she said, and he obliged, fitting the **o** of his mouth across hers. This was new. They had been too shy to try this before, though he had heard it discussed at university. Then he had found it disgusting: bodily fluids were meant to stay _inside_ , certainly not to be allowed _inside someone else_. So maybe, he thought as his knees buckled under him and he nearly collapsed on top of her, university-Fitz didn’t know as much as he thought. He tried to push himself up, not wanting to crush her, but she pushed her hands under his jacket and pulled him closer by his cummerbund. Well, then, who was he to argue? Frankly, as long as she didn’t mind, he would never move.

He had to eventually, though. For one, he was starting to feel light-headed from lack of air; for another, he had something very important to tell her. “Simmons.”

She didn’t open her eyes, twirling the hair at the back of his neck around her fingers. “Mmm?”

“I talked to your mother at the last court date.”

Her eyes flew open, amused and quizzical. “You did? And that’s important right now because…”

Distracted by kissing the wrinkle in her forehead, he had to shake his head to remember. Why was it, again? Oh, yes. “I just wanted you to know—we had a whole conversation and she didn’t sneer at me once. I think I’m winning her over.”

“Dad said you would.”

“He did?” Fitz straightened his shoulders, proud as punch. Sir Robert’s good opinion was worth the earning.

She nodded. “Well, he said that she had better become used to you, because—”

“Because what?” he asked when she didn’t continue.

“Never mind. It was a private thing. Have you got enough air now?”

He considered. “Enough for the moment.”

She smiled maddeningly up at him and he was about to kiss the smirk right off her face when someone in the shadows cleared his throat. “If I can cut in, just for a minute?”

Jemma gasped, putting both hands on his chest to push him off. “Who’s there?”

“It’s Mr. Coulson?” he answered, disbelieving, as the secretary or whatever he really was stepped into the light.

“Sorry to interrupt.” Coulson smiled politely. “I wanted to catch you privately. I’m tendering my resignation, effective immediately.”

“What, now?” Fitz gasped, trying to smooth down his hair.

“My work here is done. Don’t worry; the Agency will be sending someone around to replace me.”

“You couldn’t have told me in the office?”

“I needed to talk to both of you,” he shrugged.

Simmons spoke for the first time. “How did you know we were here?”

“It’s been on the calendar for weeks. Circled in red ink. The alley was just a guess.” He put his hands in the pockets of his suit. “I just wanted to tell you that you’ll be seeing something in the papers tomorrow about Mr. Weatherby. We would appreciate it if you continued to keep what you know regarding Mrs. Weatherby quiet; we may have to deploy her again.”

“Of course.”

“We wouldn’t do anything else.”

Coulson nodded, considering them steadily. “You’ll see it all tomorrow, but you might like to know: he was working out a deal with the Germans to outsource the British defense industry.”

“But that’s treason,” Simmons said.

“When there’s a power vacuum,” Coulson said, “all kinds of things can happen. It’s worth remembering. Well, I’ll let you get back to it. Perhaps we’ll meet again sometime.”

   As Fitz was obviously incapable of responding, Jemma answered for them both. “Thank you, Mr. Coulson. Goodbye.”

With another smile, he disappeared to the place from whence he came. Jemma looked at Fitz, whose face had shifted from the preoccupation that meant he was still thinking about kissing to one that meant he was thinking about something much less enjoyable. She leaned back against the wall, crossing her hands behind her. “He was talking to you just then, wasn’t he?”

“About selling the company.”

“Did you tell him?”

He snorted. “He works for the SSR. I don’t think he needed me to tell him.”

She thought back to her conversation with Pepper. “Are you still thinking about selling?”

Sighing, he matched her position. “I’ve almost decided. But I want to know what you think.”

“I don’t think you should.”

“Why?”

She weighed her words carefully. She knew he was worried about his ability to lead; she knew he was afraid that he would never get to design and build if he was preoccupied with board meetings and structure. Those concerns were important to her, absolutely, but— “It’s just,” she said slowly, “I think you could do much more good with MI than Stark could. He has enough time to playboy around, so I don’t know why you couldn’t do your work if you had a good second-in-command. That’s not even mentioning the new directions you could push them in—Fitz, do you realise they don’t have chemistry division? It’s all technology, which is amazing, but we need both fields. And I’m not saying that because it’s my own.”

“I know.”

“And if, God forbid, there is another war—”

He reached out for her hand and wove their fingers together, leaning his head back to look at the sky. “That’s what I was thinking. If I sell to Stark and there’s another war, we’d be starting from nothing for defense production. That would be nearly as bad as what Mr. Weatherby did.”

“As Mr. Coulson so helpfully pointed out.”

“Yes.” He rubbed her knuckles thoughtfully. “So, I won’t sell then. God help me.”

She shifted to face him, standing on tiptoe to press a chaste kiss to his cheek. “And me.”

“You need divine help?”

“Ugh, Fitz. _I’ll_ help you, darling idiot.”

“I should be offended when you call me that, but I rather like it, actually.”

“Good,” she said. “I intend to continue. And now—would you like to celebrate? Or commiserate? I’ll buy you a drink. I’ve got a tab here.”

“Oh, have you?” he said, eyebrows going up in amusement. “Does that mean you’ve reached a conclusion on my brilliance at kissing?”

She had reached her conclusion within two seconds, but there was no reason to give up the ruse so easily. “Mm. Not without more research. But at present, Fitz, I think we’re neglecting a very important part of your dancing education. They’ll be playing slower songs now, won’t they?” He nodded. “Slow dancing is better than any other kind. You’ll see.”

She was speaking from a hypothesis, knowing only what the girls on her staircase said about it. Slow dancing with any of the men she had been at parties with didn’t seem an attractive prospect. With Fitz, though—everything she did with him was good. Why should this be any different?

The club had cleared out dramatically when they came back in, whether because the parties had departed for greener pastures or because they were making use of other alleys other places, she didn’t know. Only a few couples skirted the edges of the dance floor. She, feeling bold, led them right to the middle.

“What do I do?” he asked awkwardly.

“This.” Taking his hands, she placed one at the small of her back and held the other between them. He tightened his hold so that she was flush against him, her heart pounding so hard she couldn’t believe he couldn’t feel it. “And then—well, there’s not really steps, per se, but it’s almost—”

“Like an embrace. To music.”

“Yes.”

His eyes matched her dress perfectly, deep and serious. “That I can manage.”

They danced in silence, the swoop and glide of the trumpet sounding a thousand miles away. Jemma breathed him in, listening to his heartbeat, stroking his arm idly. It was so easy to be with him. Quiet with Fitz was better than talking with anyone else; they didn’t even have to be looking at each other to know they were together. Two people, but like one person—FitzSimmons, she thought, rolling it around in her head. Her father had laughed when she told him what Mr. Stark had said.

_Are you serious about him, Gem?_

_Mother says I’m serious about everything._

_True. I think she’s coming around on him, by the way. She sees which way the wind is blowing._

_I don’t know what way it’s blowing, Dad._

_But you are serious._

_If he is, I am._

“Jemma?”

She pulled back to look at him.

“Earlier,” he said, “with Dot. She said something that made you think. What was it?”

As she had stared into her glass the prospect had seemed daunting and the question impossible; now, staring into his eyes, it was a foregone conclusion. “She said that you were a fair way to being passionately in love with me.”

He stopped moving, but didn’t let go. “Oh, she said—that was—um, how funny. She’ll say anything, won’t she?”

“Yes,” she said, “she’s brave that way. I was thinking if I could be brave enough to see if she was right.”

“Oh.”

She couldn’t look at him, charging forward on sheer adrenaline and nothing else. “Because I was thinking that if she had switched the pronouns she was absolutely right, and I thought, well, maybe she’s got it wrong the other way, but she usually has it at least a bit correct, you know, a kernel of truth at the root, and so—”

“Simmons.”

Taking a long, even breath to steady herself, she tilted her chin and plunged head-first into the never-ending ocean of his gaze. “Fitz. _Is_ there a kernel of truth in what Dot says?”

She waited two-heartbeats of a lifetime. And then he smiled, which laid out everything so clearly that she knew, once and for all, that this was the moment she had anticipated when she agreed to go to Verinder Hall for the house party. This was the moment in which her life changed.

When he actually spoke it was almost unnecessary: “Maybe there is,” he said.

There are nights, common at the beginning of any holiday but especially prevalent at the beginning of June, which seem as though they could last forever. One has just come through a difficult time with aplomb, battered by the struggle but infinitely richer for what has been gained; work done, the rest and peace that follows is more precious for being hard-won. The night goes on. And when it ends, a day of nothing more taxing than joy awaits, and a night, and another day after that, and another after that.

FitzSimmons, safe at each other’s hearts on the dance floor of a jazz club, was having one of those nights.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *takes deep breath* 
> 
> I can't say enough thanks to you all for the response you gave me and this story. I've tried about three drafts of this note and none of them have fully expressed how much it means to me. Your enthusiasm has inspired me; your feedback has pushed me to do better; your kindness made me survive Mondays and Fridays with a simply enormous grin on my face. I am _profoundly_ grateful.
> 
> The best part of this whole experience has been getting to chat with and know you all, so don't be a stranger! Drop in my inbox any time. (And if you have any questions about the work, now it's done I can answer them all! What a freeing concept.)
> 
> So. Yes. Now it's done. It's been my absolute pleasure to write for you.


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